An Outsider's Perspective
by Katelai
Summary: A perspective on the Luke/Lorelai breakup from a very unique outsider. This story takes place from the beginning of Season 7. This is rated a high T for vulgarity and some violence.
1. Introductions

**An Outsider's Perspective**

_**Chapter 1 - Introductions**_

**A/N: Okay guys, bear with me! I haven't written much fic at all since... 1999 or so and I really wanted to do a L/L from the perspective a non-stars hollow typical person. Also, this character, not me at all, so don't get the wrong impression. She is sort of a mixture of my own biographical history and then my self-destructive geeky friends.  
Also thanks soooo much to Janeway216 on LJ for doing my Beta-ing!! She's a doll :D**

-ooo-

So let me start off right here and tell you that I am no lollipop-sucking blonde Stars Hollow cardigan-wearing super-freak. I am a spit in your face, tell you like it is, bitch from the Bronx. I mean, if you had seen me when I was in high school, doing all my work like a little wanna-be, trying my hardest to get into college, playing video games every second I got — yeah, maybe I could've been that cookie-cutter small-town homegirl. But not anymore.

I did everything right from age one minute to age eighteen. Went off to college, an overpriced chum bucket in a toilet of a city, grand ole RPI in Troy, NY — or the Troylett, as we liked to call it. There I discovered a very special crowd of people just like me: gamers, computer nerds, who liked to drink and smoke heavily. I mean, I probably would never have become somewhat of an alcoholic if it weren't for drinking games. If it's competitive and requires a modicum of intelligence, I am all in.

I did pretty good at RPI, if I do say so myself. Although college taught me my best friends were rum, Diet Coke, coffee and marijuana. My nerd friends wanted to see me in the morning just about as much as their hangovers felt like insane mind-blowing orgasms, so you can bet I hightailed it out of that shithole as soon as I had a diploma in my hands.

Now, New York City is where I found my feet landed. At this point, it's probably important to know that my parents pretty much disowned me. I think it had to do with going home for a summer, drinking, smoking pot and playing video games 24/7 — I was a unique individual! When your parents are trying to scream at you for being lazy and worthless, and you puke on their shoes, it's not the easiest thing to work around. And honestly, when I think back, I sorta laugh my ass off because that is pretty hilarious. My older sisters took off in a more acceptable fashion, in their goody-two shoes Honda Civics and VW Jettas, to better lands southern of our small frozen incestuous mountain town in Nowhere, Massachusetts.

Back to our topic at hand, New York City is where I went, the Bronx more like it. Honestly, I just liked the sound of it, saying, "I live in the Bronx." It's pretty damn bad-ass if you ask me. I got hired as a tech support guru in an office building where I could pretty much fix anything that shit the bed. I wasn't exactly . . . the most pleasant at what I did and I had very little patience for the idiots who couldn't even find the on button. I guess you could say I'm a little better at that now, but still, don't get on my bad side.

They kept me at said company for quite a while, like, six years. The pay was good, I had a place to live, a shithole that I made no effort to ever clean, and plenty of income to burn on booze, weed and any random drug I felt like experiencing. I spent most of my free time stoned playing WoW or Eve or fuck all, man. You have no idea how amazing that rolly sticky ball game is until you've done it on DXM. I tried to stay away from the really hard stuff. Mostly I did DXM a.k.a. Robitussin or shrooms. Occasionally there was some acid, some Adderall. Salvia and morning glory seeds did nothing for me and I made the mistake of trying heroin. Man, a bad trip is a bad trip, no matter how ya slice it.

I'm sorry, I know. This whole monologue of mine is going somewhere. Just bear with me for a little bit more.

My employer was getting pretty pissed at me. He knew I was on a slippery slope. I was coming into work hungover or stoned a lot more than I'd like to admit. I actually have a very strong work ethic, but there were a few nights when . . . well . . . _sigh_. I guess if I'm going to fucking get into the dirty details in this little drama here, I might as well get into the _dirty_ details. I was dating my dealer. Yeah, first mistake right there, but I sort of fell into his arms when I heard he played WoW. Hah, yeah, never ever ever date a guy just because you found out he plays your MMORPG. Big huge fucking mistake, especially if said guy is a drug dealer.

This is the part I don't like, a dark spot in my life, a mistake I can never take back. I did the hard stuff with him, mostly for sexual reasons. To this day I say shrooms plus sex equals amazing. But I did the hard stuff with him, the _hard_ hard stuff, and alcohol. Never mix your drugs with your alcohol, kids. Bad fucking idea. I woke up probably . . . four or five times one summer, naked in my bed, with my boyfriend or one of his friends or both. Blacking out is not something I have ever enjoyed and when I don't know who I fucked or where or when or what or why or . . . oh god was I raped? Can I say that? What the hell?! And it went on like that. That shit sort of pulled me down. I was so depressed and I had nowhere to go. Luckily, thank whatever God is out there, I never caught the HIV or any other STD.

My boss kinda came down on me one day when I was late. I was hungover, I had no idea what happened the night before and I had this phantom stench following me that I couldn't seem to shake. I must've looked like shit because the look on his face when he saw me . . . I'll never shake that face. The second he pointed his finger at me, took a breath and started to rant, I just broke down. I have never broken down like that before in my life . . . well, except when I went through this religious phase when I was like 12 and broke down at Jesus Camp . . . but let's disregard that fucked-up part of my mentality right now.

He must've felt bad, even douche-like, thinking his yelling upset me so.

Okay, this is getting drawn out. Basically, said boss has a brother owns a storefront in a small hick town in Connecticut called Stars Hollow. Brother, let's name him Sal, wants to open a computer store but is too lazy and fat to run it. He thinks I've got what it takes to weather the — and I quote — "lousy crazy good-for-nothing nose-bags in that town." Sounds like my ball game, I say. I grew up in a town like that, and he knew from experience that I very rarely take people's shit. And what the hell is a nose-bag? I guess I can let that one go . . .

So it's like a week later, I've got my bags packed and I hop the next bus to hicksville. I leave my apartment and my security deposit — fuck that cleaning nonsense. That place was a pigsty. I leave all my pipes for the ex and don't bother to leave the good-for-nothing a note. I figured, hey, going AWOL is the best plan: he'll never find me there.

So in walks this 28-year-old bad-ass chick to the town that wasn't ready for her. I figure the booze will be easy. Every corner of every block in America has a liquor store. The drugs might be hard at first, but usually every small-town school near New York has some rich kid hauling in the loot from the city. Hey, I even turned up my nose at the version at my old school when I was a dweeb like these kids in this new town.

Now, this storefront of mine, it's got pretty much everything set up, including good old Sal huffing and puffing behind the counter. I walk in, and you should have seen me: hair dyed so many colors, it's afraid to return to it's natural slick straight brown (I think that day it was black); paddy green eyes; black Dr. Martens combat boots; black leather skirt; black tank top; the thickest eyeliner you've ever seen; a thorny wrap-around tattoo on my left upper arm; and the black fingernails to boot. I usually don't do the black fingernails, just so ya know — I am way too lazy for that — but it adds a nice effect when I'm trying to make an impression.

Sal sort of shudders when he takes my appearance in, but there is this rude old fart next to him that's lecturing him on town code and crap. I sort of smiled, dropped my gigantic duffle on the floor for effect and said, "Hey boss, I'm your new em-ploy-ee. Where do ya want me?" He sort of nervously laughed at me, eyed the man standing next to me and told me to stash my loot upstairs because that's where I'd be staying.

Oh, yeah. Did I forget to mention? In addition to being the babysitter for this fine establishment, I get to live upstairs. Well, it's some pretty sweet digs, fully furnished and clean. Maybe I can keep it clean this time. Heh . . . _maybe_. Hey, at least Sal isn't sticking around. I get a serious vibe that the people in this town scared the crap out of him. At this point I have no damn idea why he wants this store here if he doesn't even live here.

Well, everything got set up from there. I don't need to go into the details. Pretty soon news of my morbid non-Stars-Hollowy-ness spreads through the town like wildfire. Kids roll by the store window on their BMX bikes, see the badass chick with the tattoos and the combat boots and make that awed "she ain't from round these parts" look and ride off. I actually smiled and waved as . . . small-town-like, as possible. I have always been one for the wrong first impression. This is just one part of my sick sense of humor that you will come to know and love.

The store, by the way, Sal's Wacky World of Computers and More! — yeah, that's the store's name, yeah — good old Sal! Not very many people were ballsy enough to come in at first. I sort of spun around on the stool by the counter, popped my laptop on the desk and played WoW nonstop. No smoking in the damn store, so I couldn't do that. I did get my shaman to level 70 sooner than expected, so that's a triumph, no? The WoW playing and the standing in front of the shop, smoking my p-funks and blowing it into punks' faces, it was starting to get a bit old after a few days.

But then I got my first Stars Hollow citizen to grace my presence as a customer. Oh, he was a character. He stood tall and skinny across the counter from me in the shop, oblivious to my appearance and he started to prattle on about a real Stars Hollow welcome. He said I looked like an upstanding young woman and he didn't understand why more people hadn't come by. He talked about the town meeting that evening and asked me if I could tell him about computers, saying something about "trying that out for a while." I actually got him to buy a pretty sick PC and got him into WoW somehow — I don't know how, store doesn't even sell it — although I did refuse to tell him which server I play on. The last thing you want in that game is another Donald. And I added to my mental list that the store needs to sell video games. Regarding this new guy's purchase, I didn't want to insult Apple by unleashing a real gem like him onto them. I expected my personal letter of thanks from Steve Jobs any day after that.

Anyway! This guy, I tried to give him the real heave-ho like I do when it comes to people I don't want to talk to. I tried to ignore him, tried to insult him, and he would not go away! Well, eventually he did go away. He said his name was Kirk and ran off. I think I liked that Kirk, just the mere fact that he looked past my crazy exterior and refused to give into my bad habits and people skills. In fact, I think I somehow made a good impression on him too. Weird. And randomly one week, like a year later, Kirk started to work some shifts in the store. I don't know how — _I_ didn't hire him — but he said he was getting paid and he had a key, so I let him stick around.

Once Kirk broke my customer-cherry, more people started to come in. Turns out Stars Hollow residents didn't really have computers at that point. Go figure! And they were a real bunch of computer idiots, I mean. Man, did I make a killing off them. I knew they'd be back for more RAM, more hard disk space, asking me to delete the spyware from all the porn, etc, so I guess Sal would be happy too. And I think at that point I realized Sal's brilliant scheme: that anti-box-store town didn't have a computer shop.

Once the people started to come in, realized I was sort of a grumpy bitch who meant well most of the time, they started to take me into their weird little world. I gotta admit, I really wasn't ready for that, but these people have got some real hearts on their sleeves. The two broads I loved listening to the most were Patty and Babette. Man, could they gossip! If you ever walked into that dirty town diner or the bakery, and they were sitting down, you wanted a table near them.

This is how I learned about the Romeo & Juliet of Stars Hollow, the Bonnie and Clyde, the Buttercup and Westley, the Lois and Clark. This couple, although they tried to keep their shit secret, was always the talk of the town. Their ups, their downs, how they looked at each other, what they were supposedly thinking. It was the diner owner, some grumpy-ass old man named Luke Danes, and the inn owner, some leggy brunette with piercing blue eyes that no one ever saw around anymore, Lorelai Gilmore. And _man_ was that shit good. I mean, if I had been into those stupid tabloids, I would have burned them once I heard the dirt on those two.

Apparently, when I came into the town, they had broken up like two or three months prior. No one knew why, but Luke was pissed at Lorelai, there was fighting in the street and then they stopped talking. Lorelai ran off to shack up with her old flame, her kid's father, and eloped with him! I mean, the way they talked about this other guy and how she married him like that, it's like the whole town got dumped with Luke McGrumpersons. And I mean, this diner guy, he was _ornery_. The only person I saw that could make him smile was that nerdy kid of his that was hardly ever around. (I am also starting to think that the town could put up with me because they could put up with him.)

Moreover, for like eight years Lorelai would go into his diner, strut her stuff in front of a love-struck Luke, tease him relentlessly and strut out. I don't know why Luke put up with that, I mean, he had a huge angry chip on his shoulder. He seems like the kind of guy that would grab a chatty bitch and fuck her right there on the diner counter. Well . . . I'm not gonna lie, that thought did occur to me then and well, I am not gonna say it didn't turn me on. Sorry for the pleonasm. Damn English teachers in high school, still ringing in my head.

Bah. Sorry I keep digressing! I guess when Luke finally did kiss her to shut her up, she realized what crazy connection was there and kissed him back. Apparently sparks flew and lit up the entire town, or at least, the Stars Hollow citizens were happy to see Luke finally rope her in. The word "pining" was used a lot. Man, if this had happened in the city with the guys I hung with, Luke would have pulled out his piece and shot the other guy's brains out for sleeping with his girl. Well . . . not guns. He probably would have given him some crack as a peace offering and then it would turn out it was like laced with something bad instead.

I figured, at this point, this Luke was probably losing his mind in this gossiping town. I mean, most of what I heard he was in earshot of. Maybe this is why I didn't really ever see this Lorelai around.

And I guess this is really where my story starts. Act I, mean-spirited drug-and-booze-withdrawn bitch enters into diner after a hard day's work . . .


	2. Coffee is the Lubricant of Life

**An Outsider's Perspective**

_**Chapter 2 - Coffee is the Lubricant of Life**_

I've got a mouth on me. That's one other thing you should know if you don't already. Vulgarity and I are cousins. We're related. It's something some people just have to get used to. I don't believe in being afraid of using words — I do think I take it too far a lot of the time, especially when I'm pissed — but in general I don't give a damn.

And this leads me to coffee. Dear God and angels in Heaven, I love that damn stuff so much. But it has to be good coffee. Nothing I hate more than a craptastic cup of boiled brown water. Well, you can imagine, I tried the town's coffee out, got my routine in, figured out where the best cup was in that damn town. Luke's Diner. I didn't even need to go a city block. Over my time in that small town, I could have filled fifty Dumpsters with the large Luke's To-Go cups. Man, what a waste. Let me tell you one thing that'll save our environment and make Luke some money: investing in those hokey trendy reusable travel mugs. Of course, every time I told Luke this, he sort of grunted at me and went off with the magical coffee pot to go fill some more cups. Is it wrong to feel separation anxiety when the server would walk away with the pot? Even though you already have a full mug and the pot was staying in the same vicinity as you?

Now, as I said earlier, our friendly neighborhood diner guy was in a bit of a . . . permanent dark cloud of self-loathing and anger. I probably drank two pools full of his damn coffee before he even remembered what my name was or if I had even been in that dirty diner before. You'd think the one bitch in that town that gave him a piece of her mind on a daily basis would probably stick in his memory, and of course, this just bolstered my curiosity about his entire situation. I mean, the guy intrigued the heck out of me. He was grumpier than me, had a town full of people that looked at him like a brother, had a booming business, the best coffee I ever had (not that I ever saw him drink it) and lots of really horny single women falling into his path. Of course, at the time, I was also thinking of what he would do if he was stoned . . . like that'd ever happen.

That's a place I go every once in a while. What the hell would Harry Potter do if he was stoned? Wouldn't it be cool to be fucked up with Johnny Depp? Harry Potter and Johnny Depp, in the same room, stoned, sharing stories. Who the heck wouldn't want to see that? Now Luke Danes, the man that was a stone wall, I fantasize about getting him loosened up on some weed, a few beers, getting him to spill his guts. Although you never know what kind of drunk some guy is going to be. He could be a horny drunk or an angry drunk. Last thing you want to do is get alone in a room with a strong guy you hardly know and find out he's an angry drunk. Reminds me of my dad sober. I still get a shiver when I think about how my father couldn't control his temper. My mom told me once to never marry an Italian man. I can only assume that's why.

Anyway, my bitchy badass self started to grace the diner twice daily, for the coffee. To-go at first, but I realized getting up early with the paper for breakfast at Luke's would soon become another ritual of mine. I befriended the cute waitress, Lane, and her husband Zack — I know, what the fuck, right? She's younger than I am. I also had some banter going with Cesar, learning about his women. My conversations with Luke went like this:

Luke, standing over me, pad and pen in hand, avoiding any sort of eye contact, says, "What can I get ya?"

"Hi Luke, I'm good, how are you?" I'm staring up at him, the perkiest smile on my face that I can muster. Here you can see I am trying to be as out of character as possible. All I get is a blank stare from the proprietor, but he does look me in the eye with this I-don't-want-to-fucking-talk stare.

"Sigh . . .," I say. " . . ." and then I order.

Patty told me that Luke is usually better. Although he's been grumpy his entire life, he was only this bad when Lorelai dumped him the first time. Yikes, what the fuck did she do to him? I've got a pretty one-sided perspective at this point and I know it, but it's fun to pick on the "slutty woman" sometimes. It's just so weird, thinking about it. Those days in the diner when the owner blows me off and the rest of his customers, I have this weird empty feeling inside. Like I was there, like that weird broken-up energy is still lingering in his diner.

I try to put myself in his shoes. I am a bodacious diner owner chick. I like to wear tight-fitting flannel shirts and jeans. I don't wear ball caps though, sorry. I live above my diner. My diner is my life. I don't really have family around except my wackadoodle brother, his wife and their kid. Don't see them often. I was in total love with this man who lives in my town, owns the inn. We were engaged. Somehow he did something so terrible, we fought so rough one night, that we couldn't fix it. It ends, I am still in love, but so unbelievably hurt I cannot reconcile. I would feel like my mind was unraveling, like I was close to insanity. This man came into my diner for eight years before I got the guts to ask him out, to assault him with kisses. He's sat in every chair in my diner, in every stool at the counter, he's eaten on every surface, tried and made fun of every thing I serve, worshipped the very coffee I serve, drank from every mug.

One day I found her name carved into a menu, Lorelai, with hearts and circles and doodles around it. Drawn so small you can hardly find it. And then I see it on another and I realize it's on every menu. You can still feel the impression the pen made on the laminated pages. I wonder if Luke knows they're there. I feel sad when I rub my finger over it. I wonder if he comes down here and does that himself. I was actually sitting in the diner one morning, mindlessly rubbing my thumb over Lorelai's scrawl, when Luke shouted at me, knocking me out of my reverie. I was so embarrassed, I got a to-go cup and hightailed it outta there.

Lorelai to me is dead. It's beginning to be easier in my mind to imagine that he buried her, that he's broken up over losing her like that. I imagine that maybe he wants to think that way too, that not seeing her at all, he's mourning her. But the gnawing thought that she lives three blocks away, in the arms of the one man he hates most in the world . . . Fuck, even thinking about it, I feel the screws in my brain starting to loosen.

I don't think I intended for this story of mine to get all over my timeline. I guess I did fancy myself a Susanna Kasen, _Girl, Interrupted_, a bit, but I didn't plan to do serious time jumps. Stream of consciousness suits this narrative better. I'll do it like Margaret Atwood and _Handmaid's Tale_. I like that better. You know I met Margaret Atwood once? She is one heck of a gal, little old lady with one damn noble voice and opinion. I wish I could have been the brain that thought up _Oryx & Crake_. That little old lady, short statured, pure white hair . . . some crazy shit must go down in that head of hers.

I must get back to our current timeline. Once the new job wonder wore off — I think I'd been in the Hollow for like a month — I started to drift back down into the old me. I'm blank most of the time, I'm blah. I don't get depressed, I just get . . . empty. I took to taking a coffee to the park — it was warm enough — sipping and thinking, between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. before I opened shop, after I had breakfast at the diner. Usually I just thought, _God I love coffee_, internally over and over again.

"It's good coffee."

I jump, startled out of my internal dialogue of coffee worship.

"Uh, yeah," I say sleepily, a small childish smile playing on my features. I'm too tired to play cool. Looking over, I see a woman with dark brown hair and blue eyes smiling at me. Wow, she's beautiful. I think I'm staring too much. I do that on accident all the time; women think I'm checking them out. I can appreciate a beautiful woman.

"Good morning," she said. She leaned back into the bench, her hands shoved into the front pocket of her hoodie. _Oh_, I think, _she has nice jeans_ . . . and there I go staring again.

"Good . . . bench . . .," I say, not sure how to converse anymore, trying not to look creepy, overanalyzing in my head. "It's from this seedy diner back there. Some ornery old dude who doesn't like coffee makes it. Go figure."

She lets out a nice high-pitched "Ha!" and then adds, "Not from around here?" with a smile playing on her face.

Of course she knows about the diner, idiot. Why am I trying to impress this stranger? Gah. "No . . . moved in like a month ago. I run the new computer store."

"Ahhh! Um . . . Lexy, right?" she asks, raising her shoulders, her head turned towards me. She squints in question when she says my name.

"Yeah, you got it. Small town. I should be used to it by now."

"Hah, well, a month isn't that long."

"Oh, I grew up in a hol — er . . . _place_ like this." Why the hell am I not being an ass? This is usually where, if the ass hasn't kicked in yet, it kicks in.

"Oh?" she asks inquisitively. Maybe I am that interesting?

"Small town Massachusetts . . . well, a town called Lenox. You might have heard of it. _Ethan Frome_ . . . Tanglewood." I hear myself, gah. I cannot hide the hatred and disgust for the word Tanglewood. It always pissed me off to no end that people didn't know my town's name but they'd been to fucking Tanglewood.

She laughs at me again. "My mother has mentioned Tanglewood a few times . . . there's a snooty spa there too —"

"Ah, yes. Canyon Ranch."

"Humm," she responds and scrunches up her nose. Taking in a deep breath, she smiles at me again, stands and says, "Well, it was nice to meet you, Lexy. My name is Lorelai. See ya around!"

Oh good grief.


	3. You Don't Know Jack

**Outsider's Perspective **__

___**Chapter 3 - You Don't Know Jack**_

**AN - Thanks for all the great reviews guys, it is a very inspirational thing! Although I feel in order to write the dark emo Lexy I need to be dark and emo, your reviews are making me too excited and happy!! Ahh a dilemma, but I luff you all.**  
**Additionally, thanks to Cait and Janeway216 for Beta'ing for meee, you gals rock :D!**

-ooo-

_Lorelai Gilmore while I live and breath!_ I say mentally in my best Scarlett O'Hara voice as I watched her walk away. What a dame, what a class act. I knew deep down that she wasn't a vile, evil character full of spite, high cut skirts and long patent leather boots. No matter how much I wanted to be able to scream _Cunt! _at her over and over again at her, the fact of the matter was, at that moment, before I knew who she was, I liked her and wanted to get to know her. Fuck all man, _fuck all_. If I had thought my limited attention span into this town's social history was waning, after that moment, I _needed_ to know more.

I wish cunt wasn't a euphemism for a woman's vagina, it's just too fun to say. If there was no real meaning behind it, I feel like everyone would get a kick at allowing it to roll off their tongues. If it referred to a car or a book, like you could say, "Honey go start the cunt!" or "Babe come read this cunt!" I bet we'd all get more of a kick out of life. My affinity for the word cunt still hasn't died down to this day and a part of me is glad that it _is_ a bad word. Getting a rise out of people for calling them cunts is still something I find amusing. And it's _totally_ for hypocritical reasons!

Concerning Lorelai, I kept my 7:30 bench and coffee appointment hoping that maybe I'd run into her again. I still wasn't sure if I was scoping out the enemy, digging for gossip or sincerely trying to get to know this mysterious woman that had such an air about her.

-ooo-

I was born Alexandra Ainsley De Luca; after confirmation in an old stone church it became Alexandra Ainsley Camilla De Luca (picking Saint Camillus de Lellis as my confirmation namesake was probably more foreshadowing than should be allowed in a story such as this). It's a mouthful, so I became Just Lexy. I vomiteth upon those that call me Lex, it's like, why don't you just slap a Luther behind that? That's what the dumb jocks in High School used to say, those lousy asshats that peaked in High School are stuck in Lenox working construction or pumping gas.

The reasons for my own problems and issues aren't just linked to the fact that I felt like I needed to act out. Usually people like me have some pretty scarred parts of their lives to lead them to where they are. It makes it so I can read other people fairly well, which is sometimes a gift, sometimes a curse. I know Luke Danes has his reasons for being a loner; I have yet to find out most of those reasons and I know it can't all be Lorelai. He has loner written all over him as a lifestyle. At the risk of appearing as if I'm a stalker I tried to avoid openly seeking out information although it intrigued me to no end. Like... Why are there no other Danes in the area that I've heard of?

My own scar, the biggest one in my short life, is the result of a naval officer named Jackson Colburn, or, Lt. Commander Colburn - Colby as his fellow Black Aces liked to call him. There is an event called Fleet Week in New York City where a couple naval ships take port near Manhattan and all the sailors spill out for two main reasons: 1) Alcohol 2) Sex. Now I had been a computer technician in Brooklyn for about a year at the point his ship took port. I was _bad_ and proud of it, but I was still pretty naive. I thought I'd have myself a sailor though, and before I stopped into my first bar hop I never thought that this man (or any man) could change my life forever.

I'm sure he found me intriguing; I resembled my current self - same all black getup, skirt, tanktop, Doc Marten's, thick eyeliner. I didn't have my tattoo yet and no nail polish, only difference was I was 23 and Jack was 26. I think Jack knew the second he laid his eyes on me that he liked me, more than he should like a girl he just spied out in a busy, dark, smoky and loud bar. I'm not sure why I accepted his presence, his persistence and flirting, but somehow I found myself hopping from bar to bar with him, my arm wrapped around his. There were these small quick smiles that made my heart flutter. I still remember the way his arms looked that night, masculine, a sweeping of blonde hair and light red and brown freckles. I never really fancied a fair-haired boy before, but this one really turned me on!

The funny thing is that I had decided at that point to be a promiscuous 23 year old, to not date anyone seriously, to just do the "cas" thing (as in casual). But I let him lead me around New York, like I was his girl, and I knew somehow that it wasn't just for that night. I mean, he was there the next morning when I woke up in his arms. Even though we were both drunk enough to black out, neither of us felt awkward about any of it. I still remember the way he wrapped his arms protectively around me that morning, not wanting to let go. He had to ship out, but we exchanged numbers and started a phone and e-mail relationship for the duration of his deployment on the USS Nimitz, as a fighter pilot with the popular Black Aces.

By the time I saw him again it was implied that we were a thing and so we began our three-year relationship where we really only saw each other for a total of a year between his deployments. It was a very tough thing for me to deal with personally, when you have a shitty day and want to rant to your guy, you can't call him, you have to wait for him to call you. I knew the allure of the Navy and travel was starting to wear him out too. I knew he missed me as much as I missed him.

My obvious reaction in this situation was to act out, as it has always been; pretty fucking predictable and I should have known better. Still, I'll admit, I'm 28 now and I'm still a kid. Back then I was more of a kid, but I dragged that gift horse by the reigns into the field and I shot that fucker in the mouth. Lets just say I ruined it with Jack. I did the worst thing to him to ensure that he'd never want to see me again. Even though I hardly saw him before the breakup, I felt like I lost a limb, walking with a limp. I still do some days, it's like if you ever had braces and had to wear a retainer for a few years. Waking up in the morning in a panic thinking, _Oh fuck where the hell is my retainer?_! And then remembering you haven't worn it for years, that it's at the bottom of some dump somewhere or buried in your medicine cabinet covered in an inch of dust.

But I thought, _hey kid, you're young, there'll be other Jacks out there._ If only that were true! To this day I still think about him more than I should. I haven't tried to make contact with him and he hasn't tried to contact me. I'm sure he still loathes me or has forgotten about me already, but I still have these fucked up dreams where he comes to my door with a bouquet of lilacs and tells me he can't live another day without me. He won't bring me lilies, he'll know the smell of them reminds me of funerals, he won't bring me daisies because he knows I think they look like weeds.

Well this partially explains my downward spiral that brought me to Star's Hollow, my sailer named Jack. Maybe it's partly why I had such an insanely intense interest in Luke Danes; he was Jack in a sense. Maybe I had hopes that if Luke could forgive Lorelai... maybe Jack could forgive me?

-ooo-

On Sundays the computer store was closed, I didn't run the entire place myself but found myself there Monday through Saturday anyway. I was okay with it - I actually liked the job. After being in the hollow for about a month I found the local drug dealer shuffling around the high school in front of the Diner, I made my contacts and happily took in my steady supply of fairly shitty hydro. The kind of weed that smells like suffering, the burns your throat and makes your eyes redder than normal, but it would do when I needed it or at least until I found something better, like a local grower.

Since it did smell like suffering, a nice term coined by an old French crony at RPI, I decided I would try to avoid smoking it in my apartment. It might stink up the entire place plus the store and any smart person could pick it out. So on one of my open Sundays I found myself on that rickety old foot bride above the lake, trusty bowl in hand puffing as much of the crap hydro that my lungs could take. I packed my bowl into my "borrowed" incredibly baggy, faded black hoodie that had cigarette burns in its cuffs that were becoming threadbare. I think the hoodie used to say "Big D and the Kids Table", an old ska band that is probably not around anymore.

Legs dangling over the edge of the bridge, I fell back and stared at the quickly fading twilight sky. My mind drifts... _Jack, are you still alive? Luke, who are you? Lorelai too. _What the hell was going on? What was my purpose? What was I doing with my life? No, that kind of thinking while stoned leads to too much anxiety._ Coffee is amazing, sex is amazing, sex with Jack would be nice. I bet Luke is well endowed, I wonder how many of those lonely hollow moms have laid below him. I wonder where my vibrator is. Showers while stoned are nice, so is eating, so is sex. Maybe I can find someone here to help me with that need, shouldn't I be too scarred? Maybe I should have been born a guy... Wow it must be shitty to live in the same town as your ex, I wonder if Lorelai and Luke have run into each other. At least they know they're still alive, at least there's a reminder of what was and could be? _I wonder if Jack and I would've made it if he stayed in the city, if I'd have run into him again._ Jack... are you alive?_

And I fell asleep there. I dreamt of Luke in a formal naval uniform, still as a statue, staring off of a battleship towards the dock. I think Lorelai is on the dock although her back is turned, it gets farther and farther away. Luke is a Buckingham Palace guard, immovable, blank, stolid. I wonder if Jack is there; I'm so cold.

I woke up with a jolt a half hour later. Shivering and still baked, I wandered back to my apartment. Hands tightly entrenched into my front hoodie pocket, fiddling with loose thread, chewing on my lower lip to ensure a scab in the morning. Blood tastes differently when I'm stoned.

And then I found it. A baggie of heroin sewn into the pocket of the very hoodie I was wearing that night. This wasn't my hoodie; I stole it from my ex Chaz and it contained a good two thousand dollars worth of heroin. I felt like I had just accidentally robbed a bank and in that instant I am so glad I didn't tell Chaz where I was going but now I was afraid he'd come to look for me. If he finds me, and it, he'll beat me to an inch of my life or one of his goons will rape me and kill me, I'm sure of it. He could have sold the fine heroin powder in that bag to hundreds of junkies and _at least_ doubled his profits. Heroin addicts are on permanent menstrual cycles, their demand and supply fluctuates monthly and you can usually get a true heroin addict to sell his soul for his precious drug if you find him on the right day. I put the bag into a Tupperware container and sunk it to the bottom of the toilet tank, hoping to forget it was there. Maybe it would disappear. Occasionally it beats like a telltale heart, reminding me of the mistakes I've made in my life and how eventually I'll have to pay the piper on that one.

At this point I'd passed the line of no return with my high. It passed well into anxiety-land and so I just sat in the tub under a steady stream of warm water, hugging my legs, wishing someone was there to comfort me. _Someone Jack_. When I finally came down, I dragged my naked ass to bed, laying there awake all night long staring up at the ceiling fan, my eyes rolling around as I try to keep my focus on one spinning blade. I let the cool breeze make my naked body cold to shivering, so as to punish myself for the stupid mistakes I've made so far. I can't cry, I'm too cold to cry.

Before long my alarm goes off and I start a new day. A new Monday. Fucking hell, I _hate_ mondays.

-ooo-

_I wonder if Jack is still the same guy from back then, I wonder if I made him someone else in my mind. _My thoughts still haven't quieted down since the night before; maybe I need to stop smoking weed. I don't like it causing this chapter of my life to reopen. I used to smoke weed and drink myself in oblivion to forget him. I find myself staring mindlessly into dark black coffee in a green mug on a formica table, spinning the mug in circles, letting the whirlpool entrance me, forgetting time.

"Caesar made the coffee so it's not as good today," a tall think girl said, standing above me. I look up, immediately aware that I have no makeup on. I smile, the girl is cute, young, long brown hair trailing past her shoulders. She takes this as an invitation to sit down. I realize I haven't even had a sip of the coffee sitting in front of me - it's probably cold. "You're running the new computer shop?" she asks.

Nodding, "Yeah, Sal's Wacky World of technology and shit... Lexy... nice to meet you." I extend a hand, _how awkward of me_.

Mid-shake, smiling, she responds, "Rory Gilmore, a Star's Hollow native you might say."

I sit back, happy to have a conversation with someone to put my mind at ease. Wait, did she say Gilmore? "I think I met your mom the other morning, well, I assume mom or sister, aunt?"

While laughing she responds, "My Mom! Yup, she had me pretty young."

Rory had an unplucked pear look about her, at least she seemed way too smart for this town. I want to dig for information, but not seem sketchy about it. "So uhh, what brings you here this morning?"

Cradling her own coffee mug, Rory responds, "Oh I'm working at the book store for the summer, about to do my final year at Yale."

I wonder if the fact that Luke isn't here this morning has anything to do with her presence. I haven't seen her here before. The conversation with her seems incredibly forced, which is odd because the one I had with her mother earlier in the week had been so fluid and easy. I guess my thoughts run away with me because the next thing I know, she is excusing herself and heading out the door chatting with Lane.

This town has drudged up way more old emotions in me than I would have liked. Suddenly my sullen mood has turned into pure anger and I leave the diner, seeking out something to break or kick or scream at.


	4. Livin' With Navy Cyborg

**An Outsider's Perspective**

_**Chapter 4 - Livin' With Navy Cyborg**_

**A/N — Well here we are, thanks to my best-bud Cait for editing grammar as well suggesting how to tie together my ADD ramblings that were parts of this story :)  
Also, when I discovered that the "forever, forever, forever" kid from the Sandlot is Kyle, well, I **_**had to**_** include him in this! ^_^**

-ooo-

I think the only big gift my father has ever given me is his anger and it's the part I like least about myself. _Reason_ is important; a person is special when they can see reason in any situation and make decisions based off of it. When I am so angry, so pissed off, I cannot see reason. I can just see my wrath, the blind rage that begs to come out and destroy. To avoid hurting people, I tend to work out until I pass out or I destroy things. I once sacrificed four bags of rotting apples and two old onions against the wall of a fraternity house at RPI. Many a pumpkin pre- and post- Halloween has found its way into the street. Many a beer bottle has been hurtled into unsuspecting concrete. I think the worst was the bottle of Diet Coke that slammed so hard into a sidewalk it split in five different pieces. (I immediately realized, much to my chagrin, that the Diet Coke was no longer drinkable as it seeped into the dirt and grass)

The day I left the diner after my encounter with Rory, I shuffled to Sal's as quickly as I could. I found some old fried motherboards that the Stars Hollow residents had already destroyed, some old Dell PC cases, unused CD jewel cases and an old printer gathering dust in the corner (I was having an _Office Space_ moment). I took all these things out back, placed them on top of a picnic table and started to hack at them with a hammer. I didn't get far, in fact, I did more damage to the picnic table than the things I brought outside, but I felt a little better. Things would improve, but damn I needed some coffee. Realizing that I had neglected my blessed nectar of life, I ran back to Luke's Diner for a To-Go cup. I found the old diner guy behind the counter staring at me, in the middle of his thousandth wipe of the already clean counter, "What the hell happened to you?"

"Uhhhhh coffee... To go... Something wrong with your hearing?" I asked him in response, really confused and agitated. _Are there giant granny hairs hanging off my chin?_ My hand went to my chin reflexively.

Luke grabbed a napkin and held it out to my cheek. I sort of cringed at his touch, but quickly grabbed the napkin and looked at it. It was covered in my blood and a small green piece of a circuit board. I sort of looked down at it, looked at a confused diner guy, and started to burst out laughing. I don't even think I remembered to pay for the coffee before I hurriedly left the diner and headed back to Sal's. I got a few stares; I must have looked like a crazy girl to some of the residents, laughing so hard there were tears flowing down my face, one hand clamping a bloody napkin to my cheek and a Luke's to go cup in the other hand.

Well that's it, I've officially lost it! Might as well grab that hammer and nail a few more into my coffin. I find I get a lot farther if I nail screws into that mother fucker, not only does it do more damage, it makes your arms feel the real pain of the manual labor. Oh fuck it all to hell, screw the damn coffin, I'm getting cremated... _after_ I get wasted.

Since getting to Star's Hollow I have spent maybe a buck fifty, I bought an ounce of weed, some groceries of the instant variety, Luke's coffee and those new Dr. Marten's boots I'd been ogling. Might as well go on a spending spree at the local pub and figure out which of their beers on tap I like. So that day after closing shop that is where I ended up.

New England bars have some great stuff going for them, particularly the fact that they just don't have donkey piss on draft. I think I cried when I saw the familiar Magic Hat #9 bar handle, the Smutty Nose Pumpkin Ale, the Blue Moon and the Guinness. I almost jumped across the bar and kissed the tender. My first Stars Hollow brew: a black and blue, but really it was to test the bartender. I'll save my Goose neat with a diet coke back for later! (_Oh yeah_ they fucking had Grey Goose too.)

Just as I was getting into the Steve Miller Band's _Joker_ playing on the jukebox to my fifth or sixth pint, a tall lanky kid approached me from behind. "That's quite a cut you've got there," he said, gesturing towards my cheek.

I got these weird chills after he spoke, intuitively I felt like there was something spineless about this kid. I turned and looked him in the eye, he was tall and had light hair that desperately needed a trim. Wrinkling my forehead at him, I turned back to my beer, gulped the rest of the down and slammed it on the table. He laughed and took the stool next to mine. "So uhh... what're you drinking?" he asked hesitantly.

"Uhhh..." I contemplated my glass, what was this one? "Number 9 I think?"

"Oh you're a Magic Hat girl," he said with a laugh. _Oh go fuck yourself and take your Bud Light with you..._ "Uhhh my names Dean!"

_Oh God your name is Dean? Your parents must've really hated you._ "Lexy," I just responded with a smile, trying to give the, "I don't want to fucking talk to you" look.

He didn't catch on. "So can I buy your next one?"

_Well who can turn down free beer?_ "Sure... as long as it's not the shit you're drinking."

He looked at his bottle of Bud Light, "Uhhh okay... another #9 then?"

"Blue Moon," I say. Soon I find one in front of me, and it doesn't take me long to finish it and excuse myself to the bathroom. When I return, he's still there smiling at me... a creepy, _I'm gonna fuck you later_, smile.

"So Lexy, you seem to be able to hold your liquor."

"Yeah I guess I've been known to be able to shoot back a few..." _What is this kid on?_

"Want to go drink for drink with me tonight, I've uhh... had a rough day, first to uh... puke, pays the tab?" While he asks me this, he's starting to turn pink and tries to cover his smile covertly while pretending to scratch his puberty-style stubble. _Seriously, does he not have any friends in this town?_

My reaction is a sort of evil cackle type laugh, which I think scared him. "You're on. Let's make this interesting.... have you ever played Fuck the Dealer?"

And so this is how the night went on, for the next few hours I drank the poor boy under the table. Dean is a truthful-drunk. Everyone has a drunk persona; me personally, if I do get drunk, I'm a horny-drunk. While inebriated Dean told me his romantic history, maybe he thought I'd find him endearing, but really I just felt pity for this weak kid. He told me about Rory and Lindsay, how Rory is a spoiled stuck up rich girl who ruined his life and his marriage. Even though I didn't get a very good impression of Rory, that was complete bullshit. I told him he was an ignorant jack ass who needed to get off his high horse and take responsibility for himself... Honestly I only said it because I knew he wouldn't remember it in the morning, and it felt good to verbally berate someone.

But then he started to cry. Luckily at that point I had dragged him out of the bar and parked his ass on a bench by the gazebo. Between sobs of self pity and retching puke into the square, he told me he was still married to this Lindsay chick. It was so pathetic. I felt like I was dragging a drunk sorority girl out of a frat party, holding her hair back as she stumbled home. Apparently Lindsay refused to sign the divorce papers.... and that was the point when I decided that the Dean Soap Opera show needed to go to bed. I somehow got Dean to mumble to me where he lived and then dragged him to his apartment. On the way there he told me, "livin' with navy cyborg."

Don't get me wrong; after whooping Dean's butt at Fuck the Dealer I was still pretty plastered myself, but obviously he lost that game. Whatever his plan was for the night was lost on him, although he still tried to grope me at any chance he got. When I got him into his apartment and deposited him in his room, he grabbed my boob and squeezed it reallyhard. After kicking him in the groin, he must have screamed pretty loud because his room mate walked in, half asleep in Star Wars pajamas (the kind with Death Stars and disembodied Vader heads). I heard the kid mutter under his breath something about Dean desperately needing base camp, with a few choice expletives.

I walked towards the door, where his roommate was standing, "Uhh sorry, just preventing Dean from passing out on the street, as much as I'd like to see Taylor's reaction..."

As I passed by him into their living room, he responded, "Oh, it's okay. Thanks I guess... Dean seems to do that more often these days... Um... I think I've seen you around?"

I noticed the kid's prosthetic arm. "Oh... I'm Lexy. You must be Navy Cyborg?" I asked with a smile.

He sat on the couch laughing, genuinely amused. "Yup that's me! Or Kyle. Lost my arm while on active duty, but hey, can't complain, the ladies love it." _I wonder if he has any special attachments for that thing..._

"Heh, nice. So Navy... Enlisted?" I ask as I go to sit next to him on the couch. I tell myself I'm not prying for information.

"Yeah, I was a grease monkey on an aircraft carrier for a while... well, until this," he said as he raised his prosthetic arm up.

"Ouch, did one of those cables take it off?" I asked, showing I know what a grease monkey is: they're the guys right under the flight deck that retract and release the cables that catch and launch the aircraft. I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath, before Kyle could respond, I asked him, "Which aircraft carrier?"

Kyle stared at his arm, like he was reliving his accident then looked at me and responded, "Yeah, some idiot on the flight deck, one of the kids that was air traffic control, wasn't paying attention. But... I guess it didn't hurt that much, I mean I don't remember it. And I got an honorable discharge, G.I. Bill, all that, so it's not that bad." He looked at his arm again, "You know someone in the Navy?"

"Yeah... someone I used to know, he was a pilot," I struggle to say that and already feel like it's too much. I'm not sad or going to cry, I just don't know how to say it without coming off as anything but strong or carefree. I realized then, I still had no idea what I was about Jack.

Kyle seemed to catch on to my blank expression, "So I'm going to grab us both a beer and we can talk about the Navy... Not often I run into someone in Stars Hollow that knows more than their specific profession or whatever town gossip is flying around at the moment."

I let out a small smile, "That'd be nice, but, I really should get going. It's late and I've gotta open the computer store early. Maybe another time!"

By the time I finished my statement I was halfway out the door. I wanted to stay and talk about Jack, I wanted to hear Kyle's story. But what if Kyle knew Jack? Well, I wasn't ready for that, as small as the chance may be.

The next morning I woke up to not only a Facebook friend request by good old Deano, but also a healthy amount of web-stalking on MySpace, LiveJournal and some IMs through AIM. Any other girl may have been creeped out by it, but I was thoroughly amused. If Dean had been any fraternity boy he would have claimed he slept with me, drank me under the table and taught me a lesson about how to really fuck. That or he would have avoided me like the plague, but of course, Dean gets a whole definition of odd just to himself.

Having a small town pursuer, although it may be scary, it has it's advantages. I somehow rib-hooked him into giving me his Doose's market discount when the Venerable Taylor Doose wasn't around, he regularly showed up with a case of shitty beer at my store and I sold him his first desktop computer (which I thoroughly ripped him off on). He was my puppy-love-stalker like John Cusak in _Say Anything_ (although I told him if he ever showed up outside my store with a boombox, I'd castrate him), and of course the town of Star's Hollow quickly noticed him following me around. Dean thought he had a chance with me but he was really my Milhouse-esque lacky that would do anything I told him to, no matter how demeaning. After dragging him around by the ears for a while, I started to get grief from certain townies for relentlessly "stringing the poor boy along". 

-ooo-

So I woke up one morning wondering what Sal was a nickname for. Thank God we live in this modern age because Wikipedia told me it was short for Salvador (or some variation there-of). Now the most hilarious part of this is the Sal is related to Al, of Al's pancake world, they're brothers-- twins in fact. What fucking twisted parents named their kids Salvador and Alberto? Maybe they were twisted enough to think that Sal and Al made a good pair and then scrambled to figure out what they really meant after the fact. Now if you imagine Sal and Al like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, you'll be sadly mistaken like I was. Apparently Al is Luigi to Sal's Mario, which ruined my fantasy of them running up to each other and bumping their beer bellies together like two Teletubbies. Poor Al, Luigi always got the shaft, maybe Sal is off somewhere saving the Princess because she's in another castle. Every time I run into Al I think forlornly that he'll find his Daisy one of these days. I just had a mental image of Luigi grabbing Princess Peach, hiking her skirt up and violating her from behind... Now that's Mario Brothers: The True Hollywood Story.

The first time I went into Al's Pancake World, Al saw right through me, which was nice because I had gotten used to most of the Star's Hollow residents to being afraid of me at first. Al asked my name, I told him Lexy and then he refused to seat me until I told him what Lexy stood for. He then said, "Hija del Rey del Mar", which I learned later to mean Daughter of the King of the Seaand found out it was from a Tennyson poem. Never thought anyone in this town to be a Tennyson fan, but from then on Al was the only one in that town that I let call me Alexandra. He knew why it was special and I couldn't begrudge him that.

His food still sucked, don't get me wrong; they weren't joking when they said the manicotti was blue, and no, it didn't have food dye in it. My IBS was forever in revolt against my body after eating at that place, but I always went back because I liked Al. I mean, I liked him enough to bring a Gas-X, a Pepto Bismol and a Pepcid AC (the digestive trifecta). Only a special kind of guy can give you gas, nausea and heart burn from one singular spoonful of chicken noodle soup. Man I want to take a dump just thinking about it! That aside, Al's food does have one magical quality, it is perfect for any hangover. For just a few sweet hours your body forgets to be angry at you for alcohol abuse and decides to be angry at you for digestive violations. And of course this magical quality I discovered after my evening with the great and awesome Dean Forrester. For some reason the thought of an actual breakfast at Luke's made me queasy.


	5. He's a Lumberjack and He's Okay

**An Outsider's Perspective**

_**Chapter 5 - He's a Lumberjack and He's Okay**_

**A/N — I am sorry that this update took so long to come out! I have actually had it completed for a while but needed to sit on it to see if it really was what I wanted. And I lied, The Sims 3, it totally ate my brain for a while there... I have a Lorelai sim and she is a teenager... I also make all my favorite male sims wear flannel ;D**

And thanks soooo much to Jewels who is my amazing new beta! She transformed my story into a delicious mass of giggling orange sherbet!

Never get comfortable and think things are going to go your way. I always fucking fall for that shit. I always think that when my life equalizes, it'll calm from there and I'll be good. Either fate has its way with me and shits all over me, or I get tempted and fuck it up myself another way. Usually my own vices include alcohol and drugs when it comes to these circumstances. And of course, I was long overdue for a 'shit hitting the fan' type fiasco, and so I can't say I was surprised when I got a call from my mother in hysterics.

When I hung up the phone, the pressure began to build under my chest, so much so that I was ready to explode. My mom had called me in tears, my dad had another explosion of anger and they had a really bad fight. I am the closest daughter in proximity to the parents now. I stayed away because of my dad. And I lied to you earlier. No matter what sort of arrangement a person has with their family, it's still heartbreaking when you hear a parent crying. I wish my mom had the strength or willpower to leave him. I wish my dad didn't cling to this whole 'Catholics don't get divorced' mantra. I tried to pep talk her over the years, giving her the number for a battered women's hotline, recommending counseling, holding pepper spray, doing _anything_ other than just taking it. Even after my sisters berated me for not "being a part of the family", I did all that shit. Did they know our dad was beating our mom? I don't think they did. I don't even know why my mother confided in me, it just drove me into a cycle of binge drinking when she refused my help the first time. I was -- no, I _AM_ the fuck-up, but still, she comes to _me_.

The thought of it all, picturing my mother hurt, or worse, really got to me that night. I think _too_ much, especially since I hadn't spoken to my mother in months, she didn't even know I was in Connecticut. I was being their bad kid, true to form. I knew how my news probably hurt her and I was angry at myself as well as scared for her. The truth was, I stopped communication because I was scared of what I'd hear, and being ignorant was blissful. After that call I needed release. Usually when the anxiety builds up like that, I get plastered enough to forget; I smoke weed, or dial out for the night on something stronger. The best I had was half a pack of p-funks and a cool evening. After my lazy Sunday with the crappy weed and my run-in with Dean-o, I wasn't ready to smoke the ganga, or booze up again. And thinking back now, I should've been angry, but I was just sad. My normal reaction to everything negative in life is anger. I couldn't even get angry that I wasn't fucking angry, I didn't have enough in me to scream _fuck_ into the night.

The black polish was chipping off my nails, my fingers were red, and I was clad in a black wife-beater with black yoga pants. I can only assume my face was red and blotchy, black bags under my eyes from all the liner. Smoking as furiously as I could, I desperately tried not to think about what my family was doing, how my mom was. I couldn't go back there. If my old man laid another hand on me... well, I don't know what I'd do. I don't like feeling unsafe in my childhood home, I also don't like leaving my mom there. I'd ignore it again, I would cut it out again. It was easier that way. And of course, through trying to not think about it, all I was doing was thinking about it. It was cold out, I was shaking, but mostly from the nerves and anxiety than the chill.

And through all this, I didn't realize that the tears streaming down my face were in full force. I was really torn and failed to notice the outside world. I was leaning up against Sal's Computer World, taking in deep breaths of smoke, holding it in, imagining that it wasn't just tobacco. Swiping at random tears before they made it down my neck onto my chest, sniffling, trying to force it all back in. Trying to pay attention to the sounds of the night, to the cool breeze on my face, the birds and crickets, the feral cats trying to kill each other behind Doose's...

"Everything okay?" a male voice said from nowhere. I jumped, opened my eyes. _Well, I'll be damned_. Luke Danes was standing before me. I don't like appearing vulnerable. I dropped my cigarette into the dirt and rubbed it into the ground with my flip flop.

"Lexy, right?" He was closer now; I avoided his eyes. I wiped my face with my palm and nodded.

"Bad night," I managed to croak out with a fake smile. Luke nodded and leaned up again the building next to me.

"Homesick?" he asked.

"Hah!" I said a little too loud. "No definitely not." My voice was all strained and scratchy.

He looked a little at a loss for words, not surprising. Finally, he said, "Uh, want some coffee?"

_Oh god yes._ "Oh, uh, sure," I managed to sputter out. I followed him back to the diner, trying not to stare at his butt. There I go, staring again. I felt awkward the entire walk over with nothing to say.

There were some little tea lights on each table in the diner, giving it a comfortable atmosphere, the jingle of the bells above the door a welcoming sound already. I grabbed the stool by the cash register and smiled kindly at Luke as he poured me a cup of joe. This is the other thing that helps my anxiety: hot, delicious coffee. "You're an angel," I croaked out.

Leaning up against the counter behind him, Luke crossed his arms and grunted at me. Playing with my mug, spinning it in circles between sips, I tell him about how I moved there from the Bronx, leaving out almost all the gory details of my life. I'm not ready to open up to a stranger. It's something I've never done before.

"Drastic change of scenery," he says, nonchalant. "My nephew used to live in the city."

"Oh?" I asked, thankful for the new topic.

"Uh, yeah, in a real hole of an apartment. He, uh, lives in Philadelphia now."

"Ah, Phillie. I went to, um... Sesame World over there, when I was a kid."

"Usually people say they saw the Liberty Bell... So, uh, Sesame World?" Luke asked, obviously confused.

"You don't know any kids?" I responded, laughing. "It's an amusement park, based off a children's TV show. I've never seen the Liberty Bell. Oh, but I've been to Drexel and, um... UPenn! My parents used to live sort of near there."

"Oh?"

"Well, in Jersey, you know, the armpit of America."

Luke's chest bounced as he let a smile slip out, obviously trying to suppress some laughter. "You know, being in the Northeast all my life, I have never heard it put that way."

"So, uh, have you lived in Stars Hollow your whole life?"

"Oh yeah," Luke responded, nodding his head, failing once more on the elaboration I was hoping for.

"I used to hate people like you," I told him without thinking.

Luke looked slightly offended. "Well, uh.... thanks?"

"Oh, um, no, I'm-- the kids in the town I grew up in, in Massachusetts, after we fled Jersey. A lot of them were such... just... assholes. And they were townies, so–well, I just looked down on them--not that I'm any better or have made any good decisions like them... if they have or not... guhhh..." _Guh, I sure do have a way with words._ I took in a giant breath of air. "Luke. You seem very happy here, and that is fantastic, and there is nothing wrong with that--is what I am trying to say."

At this, Luke was no longer looking at me, but staring at the ground. I wasn't sure if he heard much of what I said in the end. And suddenly, I was pulled back to reality. I noticed my chipping nail polish, realized what my face must look like from the tears and runny makeup and remembered I went out without a bra on under my wife-beater.

I quickly finished my cup, feeling slightly awkward, thanked him and left. After that night Luke remembered my name, or at least, acknowledged that he knew it. And I did feel a little better, at least, the bad thoughts stopped running through my mind for that night. 

-ooo-

_No darling, every happiness is made sweeter with sorrow. Random infatuations aside, everyone knew then, everyone still knows now, those two are meant for each other. We're hoping it'll work out in the end and for the time being, we get to be entertained by their stubborn game of Star-Crossed-Lovers._

Patricia LaCosta. In another life, she was a matchmaker. One of those old Jewish women who would look at a young boy and girl and decide they were meant for each other. She had the eye for love; her finger pinch could be akin to cupid's arrow. And now she just sings of loves lost, of fleeting moments in the past, of stories only describable in song.

I had been sitting in the diner at a table with Patty and Babette, who were starting to enjoy my opinion on the town gossip. As you know, I have a scathingly dry sense of humor, and the ladies took to me the day I made Babette laugh so hard that apparently she peed a little. Honestly, a bit too TMI for me, but I'll take it. Giving me more excuses to sit in that dirty old diner, to learn more about people's problems and not dwell on my own, it was a welcome distraction. Patty wasn't one for long monologues or diatribes, but her elaboration on Luke and Lorelai was probably more of a courtesy to me as I still knew so little.

It was just a side comment Patty had made. Babette had been telling Luke about the middle school's play and how he should sign on again to make the sets. After he did such a great job with the Fiddler on the Roof, they could really use him since Kirk hammered a nail through his hand by accident. Off-handedly — maybe because he was off in another world in his head — Luke commented, "I bet Lorelai's making the costumes..." and he walked back into the kitchen. I got a chill when he said her name. It was poetic, it was ringing in my ears. I think Miss Patty felt it too, because the next thing I knew, she was trying to explain why it sounded so heady.

I must have been off in another world myself, because when I looked up from my coffee again I was the only patron left in the diner that morning. That hadn't happened to me since I was eight at Jesus-camp contemplating a cup of fruit. I wasn't ready to leave the diner yet, so I just sat back to enjoy the last few sips of java in my cup. I was sitting at a formica table in front of the dividing window to the candy shop. Both hands gripping the hot ceramic, looking for warmth in a slightly over-air-conditioned diner. I must have fit so well into the scenery of the place by then that Luke didn't seem to realize I was there anymore. When I looked up at him, he was frozen, his face concentrating on something in the park across the street. I looked over, and as I half-expected, it was Lorelai, in profile, sitting on a bench staring at the mountains above the town, a soft breeze was sweeping her long curly hair back over a powder blue t-shirt. The way Luke was looking at her, he must have thought she was the most beautiful and lost thing in the world. His rhythmic and obsessive cleaning of the diner counter top had even stopped. His mouth hung open. He looked so... forlorn. The expression on his face, it wasn't sadness or regret, it was so powerful. It was pure loss and it made me want to cry.

And the worst part was, the look, the way he was standing, the way the wrinkles in his face sat, it looked so natural on him. Like he was supposed to always feel that way about her. Like he was always supposed to make that face for her. Almost like he _preferred_ it that way.

I think my heart stopped beating in my chest when I noticed Lorelai sit up straight and look right back at him, without having to look around, without having to figure out what ghost was staring into her soul. The second Luke realized she was looking back, he bolted for his apartment upstairs with his jaw clenched tightly and he still hadn't realized I was sitting there. I heard something smash upstairs and left that diner as fast as my legs would take me, like there was a freight train on my heels. I don't know what I was thinking at the time. Maybe she'd walk over and they'd have a movie script ending, but whatever it was, it scared me. And I don't frighten easily.

And for the rest of that day, when I went to the diner, I saw the tell-tale sign of the green truck, but no grumpy diner guy behind the counter. I saw a perky Lane, a cheerful Caesar, and all the cooky townies, but no Luke. That man was still in love and hurting, hurting bad, I could feel it in the air. 

-ooo-

I've got my own demons that make the nights never-ending and sleepless. I was hurt, betrayed, and instead of coming out of that stronger, I let it get to me and make me a coward. I turned to drugs and alcohol for a really long time, continually digging my own grave. Stars Hollow, at first I thought it was my life saver, but I was starting to think that I was sadly mistaken. Sure I was clean, as clean could get, but I was still hiding from my family, hiding from myself. I was starting to just lay in bed, running these stupid circles of thought through my brain, not sleeping at all, not happy at all. I thought about the heroin in my bathroom, that gold powder that would one day make an appearance. I could go in there, reach into the tank, grab it and snort some of it. Enough to overdose to end my own miserable existence, or enough to get high for 24 hours so I wouldn't have to worry and maybe give my heart a break.

No. _NO_. I still have to believe I am not that girl, I am not that weak. If I am so ashamed of how I lived my life after Jack, then I cannot go there. Becoming an addict is not what I need, it would just make me lose every little thing I might have right now. I saw that kind of thing happen every day, to _so many_ of my so-called friends, and I had always thought I was better than them. I still want to think that.

So tonight, tonight I need to sleep in peace. And that'll take hard liquor. Luckily for me, Dean and Kyle were heading out to a bar in Litchfield that night and had invited me along. Kyle was also playing sober driver, so it was the perfect opportunity to tag along and get myself _kablastifucked_. And the most ironic thing happened.

We pulled into the street in front of the bar and there before us sat Luke's truck, packed to the nines with camping equipment. And when we went inside? There was Luke Danes, at the bar, staring into a beer bottle, clenching his jaw. Dean looked at me, growled deep in his throat and headed towards a pool table in the back. I followed them but kept an eye on Luke.

Throughout our game of Cutthroat I kept a wary eye on Luke, as he pounded bottle after bottle of Sam Adams. I also kept a nervous eye on Dean as he turned into a grumpy, prepubescent boy. He kept trying to tell me how much of an ass that Luke was. I was starting to get pretty pissed at Dean. I wanted to scream at him, tell him to go back to his wife... but I didn't feel it in me. I couldn't even bring myself to finish my one beer. Well, I had been brave and ordered a hefeweizen that tasted like Pine-Sol, which the bartender sweetened even more by tossing a lemon in it. I mean come on, _a fucking lemon?_ I didn't think hefeweizen was supposed to taste like piss and they went ahead and made it even more acidic.

I watched as Luke stumbled off his bar stool and zigzagged towards the door, I heard the bar tender ask him if he could call him a cab. I don't know why I did it or what made my feet move, but as I walked towards Luke, I told Dean and Kyle that I'd drive Luke home. I heard a, "_You've gotta be fucking kidding me_" from an already drunk and stumbling Dean, but I ignored him, smiled at the bar tender and put my shoulder under Luke's arm and led him towards his truck.

"Hey, Luke!" I greeted him cheerfully, "Why don't I drive you home?"

He squinted his eyes at me confused. "Lexy? Oh... Can you drive a standard?"

"Yeah, I--"

"Y'know, I think I'm okay," he tried to say as he rooted in his pocket for his keys.

"Huh, Luke, uh... You know I'm not good at a lot of things, but I think I know when someone shouldn't be driving," I told him in a worried tone, as I grabbed his keys from his hand. He let me take them without a fight and I helped him climb into the passenger seat of his truck.

I walked around to the driver's side and climbed in. Quickly, I surveyed where the wheel was, the clutch, the pedals... I hadn't driven since college, but it was a standard back then too. Driving had to be like Super Mario Brothers. It all comes back to you the second you pick up that old school controller. I just needed to find the mushroom, where was that dratted mushroom?

Luke started to talk and disturbed my current thoughts on how to drive and play Super Mario Brothers III. "Ya know," he said, "last woman ta drive my truck was Lorelai, an' before that, Liz an' then my Ma." I bit my tongue as I watched him lean further down into his seat. I squinted my eyes closed, heaved in a gigantic breath and stuck the key in the ignition.

"Ya know, Luke?" I asked him cautiously as I looked over, hand still on the keys, yet to turn the ignition. He was starting to fall asleep. "Gah, Luke! Wake up, you need to tell me how to get back to Stars Hollow!"

At that thought, Luke perked up. "Oh fuck, I set up my tent..."

"You–gah, Luke, you're a miserable fucking drunk! You know most people, when they go camping they bring their beer with them in a fucking cooler and stay at their god-damned tent! You would think a fucking lumberjack like you would know that!"

Well, rant aside, I soon found myself at Luke's camp site, after picking up two cases of Blue Moon with the cash in Luke's wallet. He was passed out when I got to the gas station, and easing his wallet out from his back pocket — although the action was hilariously acrobatic — it_affected_ me once I felt how firm his ass was. You see, I had assessed the situation and noticed he was about as fucked in the head as I was. After I got us back on the road, he let out a few grumbles as I grinded his gear shift a couple times, but I got us there alive. If he was going to have a pity party that night, I was going to join in, after all that is what I had originally set out to do that evening.

The two of us were quite the picture. Two sleeping bags strewn around a thirsty campfire, both drunk, laying down staring up at the stars on opposite sides of the fire. Luke Danes, although a pitiful drunk, did know how to tend to a campfire in his stupor, and he allowed me to make short work of an entire case of Blue Moon, so I could catch up with his level of drunkenness. 

-ooo-

"So what's with tonight, Luke?"

"Whadya mean?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you usually don't randomly go camping and end up at a bar in Litchfield wasted off your ass..."

Luke let out a frustrated sigh, finished his bottle, tossed it into the fire and laid back on his arm, before he started, "She fucking cheated on me, she fucking cheated on me... Lorelai fucking cheated on me! And you know what the best part is? Before I dated her, when I was married and my wife cheated on me, Lorelai fucking told me I didn't deserve that!"

Luke practically shouted it at me, I could see a vein in his neck start to throb. Did he say married? "Wait... you were married?"

"Yeah to an uptight, toothpick, red-headed lawyer, Nicole, who turned out to just be a bitch in the end..."

"You were married to a lawyer?!" I asked, loudly, trying to hold back my amusement as I sat up to stare at him.

Luke let out an amused grunt. "Hah! It is funny, now that I think about it..." Luke said behind a half-smile. I immediately fell back once he said that, laughing while facing the night sky.

A few minutes later, his words about Lorelai still spinning around in my head, I took in a deep breath, letting him know I was going to say something, "Y'know, Luke..."

"...Yeah?" he asked as he rolled to his side to look at me. There were empty beer bottles strewn between us in the grass.

I cringed as I told him, "I cheated."

"What?" he asked, wrinkling his forehead. I could see the immediate disgust in his face.

"On my guy..." I sighed, "_the one_." It was so hard to say out loud, even as drunk as I was.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Luke asked, as he moved to sit Indian-style.

"He was always gone, he was deployed... it... Luke, it wasn't..." I started to tear up as I tried to explain it. In that moment I felt like Lorelai.

"Don't you fucking try to justify it, you cannot justify it. Cheating is fucking cheating, Lexy!" he shouted at me, starting to really get angry._Well, I didn't deserve that..._

"I was raped! Okay, I was fucking raped while my boyfriend was away and I couldn't fucking talk to him about it, Luke! My life was falling apart and the one person I thought would be there, he wasn't fucking there, Luke... he wasn't there..."

Immediately taken aback by my response, Luke raised his hands trying to quell the situation before managing to voice the words that were obviously burning in his mind. "Lexy, being raped and cheating... it's not-"

"I know, Luke, I'm not a fucking retard, okay?!"

"Well, then--"

"There was this kid that he hated, that used to hang around me, he had a thing for me. Jack, my ex, used to tell me that I shouldn't hang around this kid, that he'd try something when I was vulnerable. Jack knew I was experimenting with drugs, he was worried.... and he was right. I thought he was just in protective-boyfriend-mode..." I laid back onto the sleeping bag. I couldn't look Luke in the eye as I continued to explain what happened. Each pause was a choked tear. "The kid... Ray, was his name, one night he... he put something in my drink, he brought me to his room when I could hardly see straight, I blacked out the rest and then I woke up the next morning in a puddle of my own urine. I couldn't control my bladder for two days after that... Jack wasn't... he wasn't available, I couldn't talk to him, I holed up for a week."

"Lexy..."

"Luke, I've never told anyone this before. I was so pissed off, I went back to Ray and I don't know why I did it, but I fucked him. I thought it might make me feel better. God, the little prick thought I was initiating a relationship or something. He had the fucking balls to ask me if I was going to be around later on. The second I left his apartment, I knew I ruined whatever Jack and I had."

As soon as I looked across the campfire, I saw a dumbfounded expression on Luke's face. "Wow. So, did you tell Jack?"

"Well..." I sighed, "I didn't want to. I wrote him an email asking him not to call me anymore, saying I needed to break it off, that it wasn't him at all, he was great and I'd miss him more than he could ever know. But then he came to New York after his deployment was over and he searched me out, he waited outside my apartment building all night until I left for work in the morning. He told me he loved me and wanted to marry me and introduce me to his mom... He said he'd do anything, quit the Navy, to be with me, anything I wanted. So I... Luke, I was so tired, you've gotta understand, I was so... not me. Even if I had tried to explain it and even if he had maybe understood, there was no way, then, that I could have even been a part of it.... and I was relieved, when I said I cheated on him twice with Ray, that he was angry and left me there."

I don't think Luke had any more words for me. We both just laid back and admired the sky. I worked on pulling back the tears and anger that had suddenly surfaced. We both laid there awake, slowly sobering. I think Luke had been trying to tell me something, every few minutes he'd let out a huge breath of air, turn towards me and sigh.

Finally he let it out, "You know, Lorelai ran off and fucked Rory's dad that night, that bastard Christopher. I wish I had fucking killed him when I had the chance. He's such a sleaze. I mean, even if Lorelai was vulnerable and out of her fucking mind, that asshole should have said, '_Hey you're engaged, maybe you should just go home and go to sleep_.'" I could hear the venom in Luke's voice, especially when he said _Christopher_.

I turned to Luke, I wanted to make him feel better, "Bet Ray and Christopher are related. Hey, if you ever get a hankering to beat the shit out of him, I'd love to help. I totally would not have trouble picturing him with Ray's face." I let out a friendly and understanding smile, at least, the best I could muster at 2 am.

"If Ray ever steps foot in this town, I'm your wingman," Luke responded, a sympathetic smile on his face. We both laid our heads back and looked up again.

"You can actually see the stars out here," I said with a smile.

"Yeah."

"Hey, Luke, you married a lawyer!" I turned to him, laughing again.

"Hey, don't get mad at me, you might have sex with me," Luke responded, just as much sarcasm and amusement in his voice.

"Hey, Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"You know, we're like five minutes from this lumberjack fantasy I've had--"

"Lexy, go to sleep."


	6. Okay Good

**An Outsider's Perspective**  
_**Chapter 6 - Okay Good**_

**  
A/N This chapter is in dedicated to my father's cousin, Anthony "Nunzi" Nunziata, who recently passed away from leukemia, we think due to agent orange in Vietnam. I didn't know him as well as Lexy might, but may he rest in peace. My fathers cousins and Nunzi were quite a close knit clan of weirdos, and this was the first of their group to pass away.  
Also side note: my Dad is awesome, not the guy in this story, don't want to give people the wrong idea.  
And thanks once more to Jewels my lovely beta, who for ever more will make me think of orange creamsicles!**

Head pounding, sun shinning brightly, overheated in the standard tank top/skirt combo, lamenting my broken sunglasses, I shuffled from Luke's Diner as fast as my hung-over brain would allow. All the while, silently cursing the hydrogen that decided to come together in that super heated mass of the sun with all that damn helium and life-creating nonsense. The coffee and "hangover special" (Luke's words, not mine) of pancakes and extra crispy bacon, did little to help my upset stomach and headache combo. So I hightailed it home for my Ibuprofen, large glass of water and laying-in-bed-watching-friends-reruns remedy, clutching my purse tightly against my chest, squinting my eyes, fantasizing about the destruction of the sun. Fuck nuclear fusion and all its positive results.

As blind as I was from that sunny day and my abdomen rumbling from the beer-farts that were just starting to brew, I failed to notice the tall, pathetic lump sitting on the front step of Sal's, until my foot came in contact with its squishy groin area. I heard an, "Aw fuck, not again", and then the tall, pathetic mass flopped over onto the sidewalk.

_How rude would it be to not care? The air conditioning is so close, the sun... so evil._ But I dropped my bag on the ground, feeling only slightly guilty for the pain I had caused, and bent over to see if the fellow whimpering at my feet was okay. _Oh, for Christ's sake, Dean, why have you not gotten a life yet?_

"Heeeey, Dean," I whispered, afraid of the high octaves of my voice driving my hangover into another world of pain. "So-so sorry... you okay there? Want some, um, ice, or something?"

He turned his face, merely inches from mine, and stared at me with his forehead wrinkled in pain. He sounded like he had a lump in his throat. "You sleep with him?"

_Huh? Who? What? Whaaa??_ "Uhhhhhh, Dean, what?!"

His hands still firmly grasping his sore manhood, still sort of rolling around there on the warm concrete, he responded, "You went off with... Luke."

My throbbing brain, my armpits sweating profusely, staring down at this pathetic heap of a man, my only natural reaction was amusement. Great, large, hilarious, epic amounts of amusement, which of course brought a large fit of laughter, which of course only increased my current discomfort in the early July heat. But I could not stop, and of course, this also loosened whatever hold I had on my lower GI and soon the laughs were followed by small puffs of aromatic flatulence that smelled distinctly of beer and whiskey.

At this, (Dean laying downwind, of course) he stopped rolling around on the ground, took one hand form his groin, and started to wave it in front of his face. I'm sure he was probably thinking about how he had never known a girl like me. My response to his probing was to fart in his general vicinity after obviously emasculating him. Most men, after such treatment, would cut and run, but not our lovely Dean-oh. He just laid there, dumbfounded and obviously not enjoying my foul flatulence.

"Okay, Dean, well, you enjoy that concrete there. I'm going inside."

"Wait, Lexy."

_Gah! So close to the AC and darkened halls of my home..._ "What, Dean?" I responded, in front of the door to the shop, my key already in the lock.

"I was just--we were just worried about you, Kyle and I."

I turned to face Dean, noticing that the pained look on his face had faded, but he still laid there, one hand cupping his balls. "Sure, you _and_ Kyle. I am home safe and sound, still haven't had any, so you _and_ Kyle can rest easy."

Quickly, I turned the key on the lock and swung the door open, hoping to get inside before he said anything else. But of course, I was too slow.

"Okay, _good_," came his response. And there my anger went. It bubbled to the surface, only fueled more by the alcohol still running through my system. I turned, looked him in the eye and wrinkled my brow, face turning red. Slowly, I descended those steps.

"Okay, good, Dean? OKAY? GOOD?" I said, repeating the words _okay_ and _good_ with every step. When I stopped between his widespread legs, I pressed my lips tightly closed, looked at the hand still cupping the crotch of his jeans, pulled my right leg back and stared fiercely into his eyes. "Okay, Dean? Good, Dean?" I shouted at him, garnering the attention from random town folk that had made it out that morning.

Dean looked at me with fear in his eyes and quickly tried to pull his legs together, moving his other hand back to his crotch. This action did little to lessen the pain I soon forced upon him with all of my strength, drawing upon the years of soccer that I had suffered through as a child. After this, I finally made my retreat into Sal's and then my apartment, huffing and puffing in anger, looking for something to smash. The cool air failed to chill the heat in my bones.

And it felt so good to nail Dean in the baby maker, plus finally, successfully convincing him that I wasn't interested in his advances, and that we probably shouldn't be friends. I was sort of disappointed, as I did like Kyle, but it was an acceptable friendship-casualty in order to avoid another drunken boob groping. By the time I was napped, refreshed and happily hangover free, the entire town of Stars Hollow knew what I had done, although no one really knew why. Luke even gave me a free lunch when I finally made it back to the diner that day. After that, Dean didn't show his face outside of work for at least a month, and tried, very obviously, to avoid me.

Now I've never really been known as a feminist. I like to think of myself more as a humanist who believes in equal rights for all people. Although, after the Jewels-Shattering-Incident of 2006, I was apparently regarded as the Honorary-Top-Feminista of Stars Hollow for the month of July. It actually drummed up a lot of business at the computer store as well. People would come in with the pretense of buying something when they were really digging for gossip. As much as I hate Dean, I felt like revealing the actual reason behind my anger towards him wasn't appropriate. I just mentioned 'steel-toed boots', 'that little pussy' and 'to never cross me in the early morning'. 

-ooo-

There has to be a higher power, because life is way too ironic and hilarious for there not to be. I imagine a gigantic, old DnD nerd sitting up in Heaven, in some old wooden throne in front of a Deep Throat-eque computer, wearing an old, stained and sweaty track suit with chuncky Uncle Guido gold pinky rings and chest hair, laughing his bulbous hiney off as he programs different life scenarios for his little Sims on Earth.

I am a tough person and I am proud of who I have become. I know if I hadn't experienced the hardships and dumb mistakes I put myself through, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I live with very few regrets. But I do find it ironic that when I compare my own life to others', I have been through far more adversities. Maybe the powers that be think, 'Oh, Lexy is a strong one. She can handle whatever shit we throw at her'. Maybe it's for some cosmic amusement value, like there's some alien audience watching us all from behind a screen with popcorn, or maybe the universe needs to balance the good with the bad. I have no fucking clue, and I have no idea how long I am going to be able to withstand it, to be honest.

I think the first big blow to my psyche was losing Jack by my own actions. The second, was being so drugged up that I was raped, although, I was so fucked up I have no idea if that is even the case, which just thinking about is mentally exhausting. Maybe number three or number four will finally break me. I mean, have you ever actually fathomed what it is like to be crazy? Pretending to be crazy is hard enough. Actually being in it mentally and for 24 hours a day, now that has to be some cosmic commitment, or a legitimate cognitive collapse.

So often I find myself wondering why things come so easily for certain people, whereas for others, the raining shit never seems to ebb. Raining shit, or reigning shit, as steaming piles of shit seem to reign over my life spectacularly. Stars Hollow has some sort of giant force field surrounding it, keeping the nasty things at bay until one inevitably crosses the threshold. Of course, my own personal shit storm was firmly fixated to my head and was granted access to the Hollow through that impressively selective force field. Stepping outside, I finally felt all the other things come bearing down upon me once more.

Never really one for family type activity, or lovey-dovey-ness, I actually did have a few cousins that I didn't fight with, or wish the bubonic plague upon. One in particular was Anthony Nunziata, or Nunzi, as we liked to call him. He was one of fifteen, or so, of my father's cousins, all pretty tight-knit New Yorkers who gathered around once a year for what they lovingly dubbed "The Cousins Party", basically a fancy term for a family reunion. I can't speak for his history very much, as I didn't get to know him as well as I should have. There was a mutual respect there as well as a giant feeling of loss when my mother told me the news. My father didn't want me to go to the funeral, which shows how fucked up my life is, but before I knew what was happening I was on an Amtrak train to the city. Manhattan was pretty safe from the cluster-fuck that is now the Bronx, and mentally I had reached an internal sense of calm regarding the whole heroin-in-the-toilet debacle (but I was positive the anxiety on that one would return soon, anyway).

The bathroom on the train smelled very strongly of extremely pungent and shitty weed, mixed with the obvious delight of urine, because of course, the toilet was clogged. Some dirty hippy not only brought some nasty smells-like-suffering weed on that train, past the drug-sniffing dogs at the gate, he then lit up in the bathroom with absolutely no ventilation. I mean, seriously, you giant piece of dog shit, you couldn't wait the two hour train ride without getting stoned? If you're not a seasoned ganja smoker like me, you may not know what happens when urine mingles with cannabis. It is like putting a god damned vanilla scented candle in a latrine and then expecting to smell sugar cookies when you light it. That stuff just fucking absorbs and lingers; it's not like lighting a clove or a cigarette in a stinktastic location. It quite possibly has the very opposite effect.

My mood was not pleasant, to say the least, not to mention the constant blaring of 'Another One Bites the Dust' by _Queen_ as background music in my head. That song always makes me wonder if I should have taken up Tae Kwon Do or Jujitsu, or heck, even MMA or kick boxing.

The train to New York City, to Penn Station, from the New England states, is actually one of the most amazing and scenic routes you can take. You ride up right along the Hudson River, past an old abandoned building in the very center of the Hudson River called Bannerman's Castle. Then, when you think you've really enjoyed this view, you go right by the New Jersey Palisades. Which, if you have no idea what it is, Google it because it'll blow your mind. It's like a miniature Grand Canyon nestled into New York along the Hudson. When you get into the city proper, there really isn't much. You stare at concrete walls, graffiti and part of the Port Authority bus terminal, which, trust me, is the sketchiest part of New York. I was robbed at Port Authority once (which would make an awesome t-shirt slogan).

I don't think any of my father's side of the family had seen me since I was in high school when I was still trying to please everyone, so not many recognized me when I got to the funeral. I sat in contempt next to my father who refused to utter a single word. I hugged my mother and then filed over to the wake in confused silence. Once that was over, my mother suggested I just go home, implying that I wasn't welcome at their hotel. Then she told me she or my father would not be calling, and that it was best to keep things _that way_. I honestly just wondered what the hell I did to deserve that, I mean, I did sort of freeze them out for years, but I never said or did anything _horrible_.

I now know what it is like to be excommunicated from a family. I did it to myself mostly... But still... I am the child! I am supposed to be forgiven. I am supposed to be welcomed! I at least deserve a curse word, a fight, yelling, screaming, SOMETHING! I did not get anything. I got treated like I didn't exist! Even in that setting, after my dad lost his cousin, he had no problem effectively killing his own daughter. Being rejected by an asshole who you secretly searched for approval from your whole life, a man who beats his wife, beat his kids, a man who deserved no love from any of us, he was the one that made the final decision to end our relationship. Why the fuck does this not make sense?

So I went back to Penn Station. I walked all twenty blocks with a heavy bag strapped to my back, my new Docs cutting into my heels, lost in a mental haze of hurt and confusion, trying desperately not to cry in that lonesome walk that felt like a death march. It was a hot, late July day; my back was completely soaked with sweat. My thoughts were everywhere, with my mother, my father, Nunzi, wondering if Nunzi was in heaven and somehow following me, wondering what he was thinking up there. When you're in heaven, I've always thought that you suddenly know everything and can understand peoples' motivations for doing bad things. That no matter how bad a thing someone does, they don't judge the person because they know why the person did the bad thing. Was Nunzi in heaven understanding me? Could he tell why my dad was doing the things he was doing?

I got back onto the next train, paid twice as much for the return trip so I could get out of that city before it lit my feet on fire. It was night and I couldn't even stare out the window at the cliffs of the palisades. I popped in some ear buds and pulled up the most depressing music I could find on my laptop, Jack Johnson's 'Breakdown' came up, so I put it on repeat for half of my trip.

_Breath in, Lexy, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Don't cry._ I kept thinking that I shouldn't care, that our relationship will still be the same as it was for the last ten years. And it occurred to me, thank god for Stars Hollow! Those people that didn't even know me, they accepted me and somehow fit me into the crazy mosaic that is that town. When I was in New York, I had a drug dealer that I played video games with, that had no care one way or the other what happened to me in the end. It's scary to think that at 28, I wasn't really accepted into a community, family or group, even a friggin' club, until I got to the Hollow. Honest to god, the last time that a group really "accepted" me was when I when I went to Jesus camp from ages 13 to 18, and their motivations for that are still up for debate.

I'll sweep it all up again, hide it under the carpet; it's just easier that way. And at that internal resolution, I wanted that train to jump to warp speed just so I could get back to my new home. It was serendipitous that throughout the entire day, every song that played on my laptop matched my mood perfectly. All the music that I have loved since I was twelve was making an appearance. The next thing I knew, 'Believe' by _Yellowcard_ came on, albeit one of the more embarrassing parts of my music collection, but it fit into that moment perfectly. And then the trip ended with 'Desperation' by _Carbon Leaf_, just as I got into the Hollow. _Right on time, desperation song, right on time._

It was well past midnight when I got my home and hurled my heavy backpack into my apartment. I flung the offending Dr. Martens into my closet, never to be seen again, tossed on the nearest black tank top that didn't smell putrid, settled on a pair of old, black, cotton knee-length shorts with a small crotch hole, and didn't bother to put shoes on. I grabbed the last case of shitty Coors Light Dean had given me, grabbed my last pack of Parliaments and sat my ass down on the warm concrete steps of Sal's. It seemed like a decent use of my time since I didn't feel like I'd be able to sleep that night. I don't spend enough time outside, so this would have to suffice to appease mother nature, for now. I splayed out as much as I could, stretching my legs until I heard my knees pop, then crossing them just in case someone walked by and caught sight of my awesome crotch hole. My heels had stopped bleeding and were now completely scabbed over and bruised, ensuring that I wouldn't be able to wear normal shoes for a few weeks without cursing the Doctor. Fortunately for me, it was mid-summer and I had a hidden affinity for the flip flops.

The only thing that would make that setting more perfect, would be _The Doors_, with some background instrumentals like in 'Light My Fire'. The cigarettes and cold, watery beer just accented the evening perfectly, and gave me an odd sense of calm. I felt so at home in that moment, in that town, on that weird storefront, watching the smoke drifting off into the night sky. I realized the wide range of emotions I had experienced that day; urgency, loss, regret, hurt, pain, relief... welcome, hope, calm. I laughed, wondering what would come out of my mouth next, feeling like I may have _finally_ cracked. And even the incident with Dean earlier in the week, it felt like such an insignificant occurrence compared to what I had been through and finally realized that day.

And then suddenly, I wasn't alone on that step. Lorelai Gilmore, the mystery woman of Stars Hollow, suddenly took up residence right next to me. Without asking, she took a can of Coors, popped it open, sat back, and stared into the sky next to me. I held my Parliaments up in front of her, she raised her hand and politely wave it off. We both simultaneously sat back again and stared off, me puffing air into the night sky, both occasionally sipping on very cold beer.

We bonded in that moment. It was such a weird thing, it's hard to explain. If you have ever played The Sims, you know that whenever two sims get to start liking each other. they get these little bubbles above their heads, with plus signs lighting up. They _have_ to talk to each other, to interact on some level, in order to get friend points. I felt like on that weird night, through osmosis or silent brain waves, we were both lighting up plus signs over our heads.

Lorelai was wearing a cute, black dress with black flip flops and a light black cardigan. All black, _my kind of getup_, although she was slightly more feminine for my personal tastes. There was a kindred spirit in there somewhere, though, I knew that. Lorelai glanced over at one of my heels and cringed. I glanced down, cringed too and responded, "Yeah, new shoes."

The first words spoken in a silent conversation always sound so foreign. But it did break the ice, or pop the cherry, as I so lovingly like to say.  
"Yikes, please tell me they were at least cute," she said, before taking another sip of her bear.

"Very, but I'm never wearing them again. And I didn't take you as a non-smoker," I replied, still leaning on my elbows against the top step, neither one of us making eye contact.

"Aw, poor, sad shoes, and well, I did smoke a pack or two when I was a teen. But then I got pregnant, so the story goes. What size are they?" she asked, turning to face me.

I paused in thought before responding, "Um, a nine and a half, I think. Nice of you not to blow smoke into your developing child's face."

"Yes, I like to think so! And that is, in fact, my size, if said shoes need a home..." Lorelai quickly replied, plastering an obviously ingratiating smile onto her face before taking another long pull of her beer.

"You also do not seem like a Doc Marten kind of girl," I said in a slightly bewildered tone.

Lorelai quickly spit the entire contents of her mouth out into a fine mist of beer. "Excuse me!" she exclaimed. "I was one of the first proponents of the Docs and jeans look! In fact, the Doctor himself said, 'Why, thank you, Lorelai. You look quite lovely in my shoes!'"

"Okay, okay!" I told her, raising my empty hand into the air in a calming gesture. "You can have them, but just be careful, they may not agree with your heels."

"Not possible, all Docs love me," Lorelai said matter-of-factly, shrugging her shoulders and smiling before turning to look back into the town square.

"You think very highly of yourself," I said, before turning and mimicking her position.

Lorelai snorted before replying, "I like me!" in a very high-pitched tone. "What about you?"

"Huh?" I asked.

"_Well_, you don't look so good."

"Oh..." I said, pausing to inhale the last of my cigarette before rubbing it onto the concrete. "Well, I was at a funeral today."

"Oh, Lexy," Lorelai immediately responded, turning again to face me. "Are you okay?"

It touched me that this woman that I'd had a total of two conversations with so far, was this interested in how I was feeling. Slightly taken aback by her concern, I stuttered my response, "Oh... uh... yeah. I mean, it was my dad's cousin. I--I hardly knew him. But, yeah. I'm fine. Thanks."

By the time I got the, _I'm fine_ and _thanks_ out, I sounded fairly despondent and blank as I stared off into space. I'm not good at this talking about myself thing. Do I tell her about how my father is a douche bag, or do I leave that out?

"I had a date tonight," Lorelai replied purposefully noting my discomfort and oh-so-graciously changing the topic. _Thank jeebus for that._

"That is quite the morbid first date getup you've got there."

Lorelai took in her black dress, cardigan and flip flops, and let out a giggle. "I guess so! Hey there, subconscious, _how you doin'_?"

"Was he hot?" I asked her in a very monotone voice. I find asking people if their date was "hot" is the best way to get them to talk about said person, male or female. People rarely say, yes, and then just let it go as it appears shallow.

"Um, well, hot? Hmmm... he's clean cut, sharp, cute, maybe not hot?" she responded, quirking her head to the side in thought.

"Ahh," I said, trying not to read too much into it. "So, uh, he from Stars Hollow?"

"No! Been there, done that."

"Ah yes, I've heard much of this _that_ that you refer to," I said as I lit another cigarette, gesturing towards the diner.

"Yeah, I've seen you palling around with Miss Patty and Babette. You must be on the front lines of the town gossip these days."

"Well, to be honest, the gossip about whose wife is unfaithful, who dyed their hair purple on accident, but can't tell because they're color blind... it's refreshing to have such tame news on a daily basis. I like how the minutiae is important to this town. It helps me have more faith in mankind."

"Poor old man Farley having purple hair is _minutiae_?" Lorelai asked in shock.

"Oh yes, I mean... not to sound like I moved here from the streets of Cambodia and no offense to old man Farley, but the things happening to my friends in New York were way more insane. Girls being raped from pills in their drinks, guys getting stabbed over drugs, people getting STDs, going to jail or prison, going on drunken tirades and starting giant fights. It was a lot scarier seeing how... well... hardcore my "friends" were back in New York. It seemed normal when I was in it, but now it just seems like we were way too carefree with our lives. Stars Hollow residents also do it in good fun. They don't mean to _hurt_ anyone with the gossip."

"I am sure your mother would be very happy to hear your perspective on this."

"Oh... I am pretty sure, at this point, that my parents are done with me," I responded in an extremely serious tone, looking down at my bruised feet.

"That can't be true! I mean, believe me, I was no golden child and my parents still try very hard to stay on good terms, after _everything_."

I turned to look Lorelai in the eye, wishing that was true for everyone. "I wish. My dad is so set in his ways. I went to this funeral today... I was going to stay over in Manhattan with my parents, but I sat next to my dad at the funeral. He didn't say one word to me, and then — Well, I'm not there tonight."

"And thus the beer and half pack of Parliaments smoked."

"Yeah."

"You really have horrible taste in beer, though, while we're being honest with each other."

"Oh, fuck you! Dean, the golden child stole this from Doose's for me, well, when we were still "friends"," I told her laughing, making air quotes when I said 'friends'.

Lorelai belted out a real laugh and grabbed her stomach. "I heard about that! How you made sure he'd never reproduce again! Rory and I were quite impressed!"

"It felt really amazing! And the sad part is, I'm sure he learned nothing," I said, wiping stray tears from my eyes while laughing the whole time.

"Hey, you know what I think?" Lorelai asked, sobering.

"Huh?"

"Stars Hollow really needed a Lexy."

_And Lexy really needed Stars Hollow._

**A/N — You can check out the playlist for this chapter here: .com/user/47163458**


	7. My Own Worst Enemy

**An Outsider's Perspective **

_**Chapter 7 - My Own Worst Enemy**_

**A/N – This chapter has been created from like ten different places and times, sorry if it seems disjointed, I just wanted to get it out there. I was afraid that I was pushing our Lexy too hard and I'm honestly still torn about what to do about her. This has really gotten to the point where I just need to grin and bear and push the submit button!**

**And thanks to Jewels-Zombie-Head for withdrawing from the dishwasher in her crown jewels (ha!) for me, to Beta this! She rocks, as she already knows, I am sure ;)**

Sometimes I am nothing. I am an empty soul trapped in the wind. I go and be, I follow, I drift. I don't think, I don't form opinions, I just float on and out. And then I start to wonder about my own condition. I ask myself if it's right that I am so blank. I try to comprehend the usefulness in this situation, this state of being. I start to beg to be pricked, to be cut, to be hurt, so I can feel those things again. I wonder if I can't feel happiness, if I cannot bring that contentment upon myself, maybe feeling aggression is the only way for me to stay human.

There are lines on my thigh, the reason why my skirt never rises more than two inches above my knee. Those scars are personal reminders, my own daily reality check. In general I am a wreck, a failure, a mess, but those lines are reminders as to how much worse it can really get. I've thought about it. Heating up a quarter, or if I am feeling particularly destructive, a razor, on the edges with a candle and rolling or dragging it along my skin. That searing pain is almost pleasure compared to the emptiness inside of me.

The "friends" in my life used to think the candle was always on my bedside from a drug addiction, for my pipe or bowl. It was for my 1974 bicentennial quarter and my dull razor blade that no one knew about - those items found their way to the places most men wouldn't even see in the dark. I don't know how it started and I don't know how it stopped, but I see evidence of it every day and wonder how long it'll be until my resolve crumbles and it comes back.

It's a _Social Distortion_ kind of week and _Story of My Life_ has been playing on repeat in my head for days. Dean is back with his wife, tentatively, after years of a legal separation, casually dating and testing the waters. This is the first mention of Dean that actually made me glad; I like to think my swift kick in the nuts taught him a thing or two. It's so nice to not have him riding my ass anymore, and as twisted as it is, I have been spending time with Kyle again, mostly trying to see what he can destroy with his claw. We've dubbed it the "Death Claw," and many a CPU case has inconspicuous holes and dents embedded in it. I've come to think of these holes or dents as modifications to increase air circulation and core temperature.

_Oh!_ I had my first throw down with Taylor, and I've got to hand it to Luke. That shit felt_ good_. He was asking me in the most condescending tone of voice he could muster, if I'd hang a sign in my window about the town's upcoming 'Fall Folliage Festival' to commemorate … the obnoxious orange hues of autumn. I put on my best customer service voice and tried to nice my way out of it, but that man is worse than a shart on a hot summer's day. If I've learned anything about this town this summer, it's that no matter what you say to this man, he'll always bounce back acting mostly oblivious. I eventually told him that I'd rather have him cram his tacky sign up my ass before I allowed him to hang it on the door. I told him that apparently something crawled up my ass and died a few years ago, according to my father, and that the dead rodent, or whatever the fuck it was, would be happy to have some reading material. Taylor expelled a single bead of sweat and a quiet yet high pitched noise from the back of this throat, then quickly vacated my store with an exaggerated waddle.

Apparently Gypsy, unbeknownst to me, had been lurking at the back of my store, heard the whole thing, and the entire town knew about our encounter within the half hour. The secret service has got nothing on this town.

The surly, grumpy diner man, Luke, whom I've come to think of as a friend, provided me with a free patty melt that day. I even saw the man crack a smile, which I'd only ever observed once before when his brainy kid was talking about gastroenterology or geology or something.

-ooo-

Doose's Market was cold when I walked in, the first warning sign I should have noticed, but I had attributed it to Taylor's current disdain for my character. The second warning sign was that there were no oversized marshmallows left. The third was what I saw. My breath caught in my throat like a gust of air forced down into a rumbling vacuum cleaner. I was at a loss for where it went. I needed that air, but it was gone, and my only sign of life was evidenced by my pounding heart. I felt like my wings had been clipped, my legs were immobile. _Just breath_, would have been my first thought if my brain had been functioning. I stood as still as possible, invisible to myself but exposed to the world around me. Was my hand working? It still had a bag of mini marshmallows clutched tightly in it, so yes, it _had _to be working.

_He_ was there, standing in Doose's market, looking at the nutritional information on a box of Wheaties, completely unchanged. He wore a navy blue t-shirt with a giant Red Sox "B" on the back, his anchor arm tattoo standing out against his fair skin. His hair was short in a crew cut - red like it had always been - and his freckles trailed along the back of his neck where the sun always hit him the most. He did not see me but I lost my breath the moment I realized who he was. Once I regained function of my legs, I quickly backed from the store as quietly as my boots allowed and just about ran for my shop, still not realizing that I had just shoplifted a bag of mini marshmallows.

The damn town knew. The god damned town's gossip mill got to me later that day. Apparently Jack, my Jack, the one I thought I'd lost for good, that I thought I'd never see again after I so selfishly broke his heart, was a Star's Hollow boy. It turns out that Mrs. Slutski, the old coot that lived by the diner, is his great aunt, and his mother had raised him in the Hollow until they had moved to Woodbridge when his father passed away. _Jack is back_, was the word on the street. Apparently the town hadn't forgotten about how he had left the Stars Hollow High Minutemen in a lurch during hockey finals the year that he moved away. He was back in town, staying with Mrs. Slutski in her apartment next to the diner, helping her to get ready to move into a retirement home. There was a rumor that he'd stay.

I mean … I knew he was from Connecticut, somewhere near Hartford. I knew he occasionally used the same New England "wicked" colloquialism that I did. And of course my reaction was that this was some form of cosmic karma for what I had done. I didn't punish myself enough after I told him the truth, cutting, boozing, and my own addictions weren't enough apparently. An awkward future run-in with him was inevitable; he would soon find out about the eccentric and sharp-tongued computer store girl and put two and two together. I don't want to even contemplate what he would think about this entire situation because it was too wacky for me to understand. I know for sure that I wasn't there to stalk him, but he has to think that I am a crazy spiteful bitch. I wouldn't be surprised if he assumed that that was why I was there.

And I mean, come on, what is wrong with me? It's been years. There has been time, plenty of it, for me to get over him, for me to not care! But I cared, and I hurt, and this fucking sucked. I hate that I wanted to touch that damn tattoo, I hated that I wondered if there were any new ones, I hated that I wanted those fair freckled arms wrapped around me. I am a god damned island. I don't need anyone else, at least … that's what I kept telling myself over and over again. That's what I've always been telling myself, even when I knew it wasn't true.

So I hid out. I would still venture to the diner early every morning for my caffeine boost, but I tried to cut in and out as fast as I could. It worked for me for about a week. Luke noticed my awkward behavior and the fact that I always had my eye over my shoulder, and he didn't fail to have a little bit of fun at my expense.

"Assassins?" he asked me smugly one morning.

"What?" I answered, my head turned to peer across the street into the square.

"Are assassins after you?" he questioned with a cocky smirk.

"You've been spending too much time with Kirk," I told him as I tightened the lid on my large to-go cup and tugged the strings on my hoodie.

"The sun's not gonna be around for much longer. Might want to loosen the hood on that thing," Luke said as he nodded towards my head securely wrapped in a giant black hood.

"Ninja code," I answered as I smirked and hastily made my retreat.

The next day I wasn't so lucky. I thought I could get away with some apple pancakes, a side of sausage, and home fries. Luke had just complemented me on the fact that I don't like maple syrup on my pancakes, I told him he should get turkey sausage in response, and he laughed at me as he turned to fill more coffee cups_. I'll eat it all_, I thought wistfully as I applied an ample amount of butter to my pancakes.

I was harshly shaken from my reverie. "Jack! Welcome home!" Luke happily said as he greeted that fair-skinned man, now in the Red Sox hat with a folded brim, clapping him merrily on the back.

I sank into my chair, praying to any god available that my giant black hoodie would suddenly materialize around me so I could sink into it. I wore my damn black tank top with two XKCD stick figures on it talking about not "Drinking and Deriving". I was facing them, in plain view. I debated internally with myself if I could switch seats quickly without being noticed. Before I even had a chance to blink, Jack had turned around in search of a seat and froze when he caught my eye. A sudden look of shock and loss flashed across his face. I could see him quickly reel it in and force complete indifference to the surface. Still, that first look gave me a shiver that went straight to my core.

He forced a half-smile and approached me. I flipped through my mental catalog looking for a topic of conversation, and of course, I came up with nothing. All I can ever come up with at times like these are heinous sex acts that no one should speak of out loud.

"Hey," he said, breaking the silence, his hands wedged in his tight jean pockets.

"Jack," I responded. I had no idea where to start. My mind was focused on his hands in those worn jeans....

"You're in Stars Hollow…." he said, trailing off.

"Yeah, I'm, uh, I work—"

"The computer store," he said quickly, cutting me off.

"Yeah … they work fast."

He chuckled, "Yeah I wasn't sure if the spirited computer store girl they described was you, but I guess this confirms it."

"It's good to see you, Jack," I said sincerely. I was genuinely happy that he was alive and well, that he was home and in one piece.

"Lex," he quickly said. I cringed; he knew how much I detested that name. He saw my reaction and clenched his jaw. "I, uh, I have to go," he said as he turned, waved to Luke, and made his way out the door.

Flabbergasted I think is the correct word to use here. I was completely and utterly flabbergasted. I stared at the door until what was left of my breakfast was cold on my plate.

"So you know Jackie?" I heard from above me.

I looked up and saw Luke holding my plate. "Huh?" I asked.

"You know Jack, the guy you were just talking to," he asked again, slightly agitated.

"Yeah, uh, yeah, Jack. I do. I know him … I knew him," I stuttered.

"He's a great kid," was his only response as he turned and headed to the kitchen.

-ooo-

I was an inch from falling apart again. For the rest of the day I did everything I could possibly do to keep my mind off of the inevitable. I cleaned the books up, I did inventory, I placed orders, I scheduled a few freelance network admin appointments, and I even dusted all the shelves and merchandise.

I had my back turned towards the door and concentrated as hard as I could on replacing the fried motherboard on Kirk's new PC. I lost myself in thoughts of how Kirk could possibly fry the beast of a motherboard already, I wondered what Kirk did on his desktop PC, and as my mind drifted off, someone cleared their throat at the opposite side of the counter.

"Oh, sor—" I managed to say as I turned and noticed who was standing in front of me. "Ja—"

"Please don't say it," he responded quickly, cutting me off.

"Okay…." I said with some hesitation. At a loss for what to do, I placed my hands on the cool glass of the counter. Jack walked closer to me, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his lightweight black coat.

"I really didn't expect to find you here … anywhere," he began.

"Me either." He nodded. "You're here to stay?" I asked him hesitantly.

"Yeah, I hoped to. My aunt's apartment is rent controlled and I'd be a fool not to…."

"Oh, that's good."

"I'm … I'm glad you're okay too," he said, and it became obvious to me that those words were his reason for being in the shop that night. He let out a large breath, probably because his mission was completed. I knew Jack well enough to see that he would not have let himself sleep that night until he did the right and honest thing. It might seem trivial to most people, but that was oh-so-Jack.

"I've missed you," I blurted out, cringing the moment the words left my lips. _Think before you talk, Lexy, THINK_.

He just pursed his lips in response, obviously fighting the words that sat on the tip of his tongue. He shook his head and took a step back.

"I'm sorry, Jack," I told him pleadingly, using his name on purpose after he asked me not to. I was diving in nose first. I wanted something out of him, something more than what he probably rehearsed over and over again in his head before he came into the shop.

Jack let a giant puff of air from his nose, his lips still tightly pursed and his jaw clenched. Again he shook his head. I waited in silence for him to say what he wanted to say. Briefly he made eye contact, opened his mouth to talk, but instead of speaking he headed for the door.

"Jack," I begged.

"No, Lexy!" he said as he turned towards me, his hand on the rail of the store's door. "You don't get to miss me, okay?!" he shouted, his voice filled with raw emotion. With that, he was gone.

-ooo-

This is harder. This is so much harder. If he had just not existed in my reality anymore, he could have died, he could have moved on, and I could have just not known. I won't say the word, but I am pretty sure that I am in _"it_" with him still. I felt it the second I saw the anchor on his arm, when he stood in Doose's Market with the box of Wheaties. He was going to put an '_A'_ in that anchor for me on the empty nameplate. The nameplate still stands empty. My heart fluttered when I noticed it and hoped that there was no one else in the picture. I pictured _my_ _A_ in that fucking plate. Yes, I went there and I am ashamed that those feelings are stronger than ever. I would be a fool if I did not recognize similar feelings in his words and actions, but it was so evident that he was still so hurt and angry about what I had done. In a deep, hidden part of my heart I had hoped that maybe time had healed those wounds, that maybe the next time I saw him, all would be forgiven. I was so wrong about that.

I warmed a razor blade up with the candle that sat on my bedside table. I held it above my thigh, letting the hot metal burn the calloused skin of my thumb and forefinger. I could hardly see it through the tears that streamed down my cheeks. I felt those tears fall to my bare legs, like small pieces of my heart that were leaving my body, never to be a part of me again. I was shaking but my hand was steady. I lacked encouragement to complete the task. I was angry at myself for not having the balls to follow through.

_Why do I have to feel like this? _I asked myself._ What did I do to deserve this?_ _I'll prove to them how strong I can be_ _..._ There it went, the blade in my now disjointed hand that I no longer had control over, that hand dragged the blade in a long line from one side of my thigh to the other. It hurt and it bled and I couldn't be bothered to clean it up. I lacked the will to stop it until the line was complete. When the emotional pain didn't go away, I almost did it a second time, but instead, using my last ounce of self respect, I threw the blade across the room and fell to my pillow for comfort. _This isn't strength_, I thought.

Blood on my sheets, on my pillows, on my comforter. When I woke up a little later that night, my thigh was fused to the corner of a sheet, and it throbbed as I tested to see if my knee still worked. I had no idea how I ever did this before; it had never hurt this much. Two brown Dunkin Donuts napkins and a roll of Scotch tape later, I left the confines of my apartment and the storefront. The warmth of the diner drew me in, as did the man standing solitary behind the counter, methodically wiping it down. He could have been a screen saver staying there, moving his arm in a circle, wiping at nothing, and I could have stared for hours.

The bells rang out, and he looked up at me. He knew about Jack. I could tell in the way he held himself behind the counter.

"I used to babysit Jackie, after his dad died," Luke confessed, staring down at his boots, his arms now crossed defiantly.

I was immediately defensive. Luke was supposed to be my ally. "I didn't know he--"

"Go home, Lexy," he told me with such vehemence, I forgot why I was there. I forgot that my leg was throbbing. Jack had obviously said something to him, but I was too tired to fight it anymore. So I left to the small apartment above the store, the now bare mattress welcoming me back. I huddled my legs under my stiff skirt, left the boots on my feet, and gathered my arms close to my sides. I counted the throbs in my thigh and lost consciousness around a thousand.

-ooo-

Maybe I should have been shocked to have had the rug pulled out from under my feet again. I thought that the rug hadn't been there for years. I felt like I'd been standing on solid, cold, concrete.

Suck it in. Pull it back. Yesterday didn't happen. There's always tomorrow. Pull. It. Back. Hide it. Forget it's there. Just hide it. Just pull it back. Forget it happened. Remember tomorrow. Whatever I told myself, I punctuated my own encouragement with my sharpened thumb nail stabbing directly into the giant scab on my thigh. Pull it back, _stab_; suck it in, _stab_; forget it happened, _stab_. It helped a little. In public I chewed my lip, and in private, I stabbed my thigh.

I had everyone convinced. I didn't need to worry about Luke. He didn't care anymore. I didn't need to worry about Jack because he never really cared. I didn't need to go to the diner anymore, so I didn't need to worry about _Hello! Magazine,_ either.

Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to assume that I could ever get anything like that past Lorelai Gilmore. I soon learned that she herself was a compulsive lip biter, and those of us self-destructive types can pick out similar people in a crowd.

What led me to standing face to face with that formidable woman? Well, it was really only a matter of time until my computer expertise was needed outside of the little shop in the town square. People who have computer issues tend to radiate towards the local computer retailer. I hung my A+ and Network certificates right above the cash register, partially for the peace of mind of my customers, but mostly for me to show off and get some freelance work. And as a side note, A+ and Network certificates are a pretty useless waste of time. I didn't learn anything from taking those courses, they just allowed me to raise my hourly rates because I'm "certified."

If one of your defining characteristics is that of a voyeur, if you don't mind computers, and you can stand working with people, freelancing network troubleshooting may be your ideal career path. I have seen it all. Being voyeuristic assumedly implies you're a dirty, old man who likes to watch his neighbors undress through binoculars while he jacks off. My kind of preferential voyeurism has to do with taking amusement in what I see on my clients' computers: giggling at the suggestive Chippendale's desktop image, turning red when I accidentally pull up someone's collection of dirty librarians, or being impressed by a somewhat conservative retiree's video game collection.

Maybe peeking inside someone else's computer is like peaking up someone else's skirt, but let me just say right here that I get no erotic return from it. It's purely for my own entertainment value. And boy howdy does the town of Stars Hollow have amusement value!

Let me start with Babette Dell. That woman is the biggest Sims addict that I have ever known, and I count myself in this ranking. She was somewhat skeptical when I coerced her into purchasing the game, but the second she got her account set up I didn't see her around for a few days. The next thing I knew I was installing more RAM on her moderate box and telling her she could download custom made skins online. I had personally set up their home network, so Morey could share his music with Babette, and they could stream it all to their stereo. Morey has a sick setup when it comes to recording equipment.

One slow afternoon, Babette came running through the square, tightly holding her ample bosom from bouncing too wildly with her arms as she barreled straight through the shop door. She told me her computer couldn't connect to the internet, and she had promised one of her Sims friends some sort of upload or download. She said it was good timing, that she and Morey were leaving for dinner in a bit and that I could go over there to resolve it while her Sims were "on break." Her words, not mine.

What I found was horrific and scarring and I think I'll take amusement out of it until the day that I die. I probably shouldn't have logged onto her account but I couldn't help myself. I needed to see what she was cooking up. The Dell Sim house was pretty average. There was a Morey Sim, a Babette Sim, and two cats, Cinnamon and Apricot. They lived in a modest home with a low ceiling. The Danes house next door took my breath away. Lorelai Sim was married to Luke Sim and they had no less than six children: Rory, Little Luke, twins Andy & Mindy, and twins Pinky and Francesca. That poor woman's vagina. Oh, and the kicker, their poor neglected dog was named Christopher, and it was deathly afraid of all six kids! Next door was the beautiful and sexy Bachelorette Patty Sim, and she had seventeen men (including Luke, Jackson, and a Frenchman named Michele Gerard) that were madly in love with her. Taylor Sim was married to Kirk Sim, and they had an adopted Asian baby named Leelee. Kirk Sim was of course cheating on Taylor Sim with Lulu Sim.

And that's not event the brunt of the iceberg here when it comes to Stars Hollow computer vices. I'll spare you the details of which resident is addicted to gay cartoon porn (and bad at hiding it), which one has way too many suggestive sites bookmarked about naughty mechanics, and which one is so addicted to Lolcats that all their 'start menu' items are now in Lolspeak (emayo, intarwebs, comput-arr, pikshurs, etc). _Okay_, the Lolcats one is obviously Kirk. I don't know any other human that would go that far.

My long digression really was intended to be a lead-in to how I am now the local network technician for the Dragonfly Inn. Oh yes, I met the human version of that annoying French Sim Michele Girard, and oh my goodness it brought me out of my funk for a few enjoyable minutes.

"It is deplorable," Michele muttered under his breath as I stood awkwardly before the front desk, chewing my lip. "I don't know where we drag these ragamuffins up."

"Yeah," I commiserated, eying him. "They'll let anyone into this country nowadays."

"Where do you buy your footwear, out on the construction yard?" he pressed, smiling to himself.

"No, I got them at your mom's house."

"Well!--"

"Michele!" Lorelai's voice rang out, causing the surly Frenchman to step back a bit. "Why didn't you tell me Lexy was here?"

"I was about to...."

"She's here to fix that annoying IP mismatch error we keep getting and to fix the wireless access point upstairs that everyone keeps complaining about," Lorelai said with some exasperation.

"Of course, I should have known," Michele sighed, focusing his attention now on the checkout computer.

"Hi, Lorelai," I said, smiling and holding my hand out. She smiled back warmly and grasped my hand. _She's so cool_, I thought before blushing slightly.

I followed Lorelai up the stairs of the inn, admiring the little knick-knacks and items decorating the walls. "So there's this router in room six that's supposed to be the access point for our guests, but it never seems to work," she told me as we approached room six. She followed me in, closed the door behind us, and moved towards the bed. "It's actually under here. The bed is too low to climb under so we'll have to scoot it."

I helped her move the bed and then crouched down to inspect the router.

"Ouch," she gasped when she saw my legs and the gruesome scab on my thigh. I immediately blanched and tried to cover it up.

"It's … it's nothing, really, just a scrape," I tried to lie, sitting there on my ass, holding my skirt over my thighs. I felt my heart start to pound and my hands start to shake.

"You don't look so good, Lexy," she whispered as she moved to sit next to me.

"It's been a horrible week," I admitted, hardly able to get the words out before I shuddered and dropped my head to my knees.

"Aw, hon," Lorelai said as she moved to sit next to me and rub my back.

"I thought it would make me feel better," I admitted, unable to lift my head. "It used to make me feel better."

"What happened," she asked me quietly, patiently giving me time.

"Just everything," I cried. "My ex-boyfriend is from this damn town. I thought I ran away. I thought I left it all behind."

"You can't really ever run away from your problems," she said softly from her spot on the floor, her hand still rhythmically rubbing my back.

"I hurt him," I admitted, turning my head to face her. "I think ... I think he was the one? God! It's so ridiculous. I don't cry over boys!"

"It's okay to cry over a boy," she replied with a sad smile on her face. "Is it Jack?"

I nodded in response, desperately trying to breath steadily.

"Wow," she said under her breath. "That's _hard_."

At this I snickered.

"Oh!" she gasped. "I dirtied myself!"

After a moment of silence I let out a long-kept sigh. "Thanks for listening, Lorelai."

"Any time," she replied without missing a beat, smiling. "Listen, Doogie, you start figuring out that doohickey over there, and I'll get some Neosporin and a bandage for your leg. That way the scrape excuse will seem a little more realistic. And then when you're done, come downstairs for some coffee with me and Sookie."

"I don't know--"

"That wasn't a question," she said with finality as she stood. "You look like you could use some friends."

I smiled and blushed before focusing my gaze down and toying with the hem of my skirt. "Thanks, _mom_," I huffed to her as petulantly as possible through my smile.

Lorelai blew from the room with a laugh, her clanking heals signaling her retreat down the staircase.


	8. Of Dominatrices and Secret Lovers

**An Outsider's Perspective**

**Chapter 8**

_**Of Ball Gags, Dominatrices and Secret Lovers**_

**A/N - Don't let the title scare you, it's really not like that. I hope you enjoy! Review, let me know what ya think! I *heart* Jewels because she's the best beta ever, everybody says so!**

"So, Lorelai," I began, cradling a delicious cup of coffee in my hands. She raised her eyes, lips still on her own mug, looking at me in response.

"Have you ever considered being a dominatrix?" I asked, my voice tinged with sarcasm.

Lorelai practically sputtered her entire mouthful of coffee into her mug, surveyed the empty dining room, and leaned forward. "Dominatrix?" she replied, struggling to keep her voice even.

I let out a short laugh before going on. "Well, the way you handled me up there, I would be ... um, well, _remiss_, to say it wasn't kind of, well, hot."

At this, Lorelai released a loud guffaw and slapped the table lightly. "Seriously," I continued flirtaciously, with absolutely no seriousness in my voice. "I mean, I wouldn't give you a job reference until I saw you in some stiletto's and a pleather corset, but you would probably rock the job."

Lorelai leaned back in her chair, a subtle smile on her face. "I do look good in stilettos."

At her last word, Sookie bustled into the dining room, clad in a red chefs jacket, and her hair in pig tails with a red bandana. She plopped into the chair next to mine and smiled goofily, her dimples on full display. "Lorelai does look really good in stilettos," she confirmed as she moved to put some sugar in her mug that had sat waiting at our table. "Why are we talking about Lorelai in stilettos?" she queried a moment later.

"Oh, Lexy thinks I'd make a decent dominatrix," Lorelai said as nonchalant as she could muster.

It was Sookie's turn to sputter into her mug and then do a similar survey of the empty dining room. Her eyes were as wide as saucers until she let out a girlish giggle that caused her to squint. She set her mug down carefully and clasped her hands over my mouth. The giggles did not stop.

"What?" Lorelai asked. "It's not _that _funny, is it? It wouldn't be that bad at it...."

"No," Sookie was able to say through her convulsions. "Oh! Hee, ball gag!" she squeeled, a little too loudly for a respectable country inn.

I leaned back in my chair and just stared. _Ball gag?_

"It's such a funny word!" bellowed Sookie, tears starting to gather in her eyes. Lorelai released her own laugh in response which only caused me to giggle. I don't giggle, but in all seriousness, 'ball gag' _is_ a funny term.

Suddenly, Lorelai spurted out, "cock ring!"

Which caused me to move on from embarrassing giggles to an all out nerdy laugh, with a few snorts along the way. "Anal beads," I spurted out, as it's become suddenly obvious how hilarious they are.

And then Lorelai sobers for a moment. "You know—dildo!" And cracks up herself again. We were all laughing so hard, I would normally assume marijuana had been involved. By the time I was able to contain myself, and Sookie and Lorelai were able to do the same, we all sighed simultaneously. That caused even more giggles and Sookie to claim we made her snarf her tea.

"Oh," I sighed happily. "I love being twelve."

Lorelai snorted in agreement.

"You know," Sookie cut in, her tone of voice much more sober, "I tried the fuzzy handcuffs thing once with Jackson; it did not go well."

"I prefer to pick up some nice, soft rope at Home Depot," I blurted out. I earned stares from both women. "What? it's cheap, and you can get a lot of it. Plus, once you learn how to tie someone up, it's pretty comfortable."

"Oh, well, yes, once you learn to tie someone up," Lorelai responded sarcastically with a smile upon her face.

"I should suggest that to Jackson," Sookie blurted before giggling a little herself. "Ever tie your guy up?" she asked Lorelai, going for nonchalant herself.

"Uh," Lorelai said. "Um, well, no. He's uh, he doesn't. No, I haven't."

"So I gather you've tried," I asked, surprised.

She looked at me for a moment before shaking her head. "Maybe," she told me, that small smile returning to her lips and a faint blush tinging her cheeks. "It's not for everyone."

"Oh!" Sookie interjected, "I bet Luke _loved _that stuff!"

"Sookie!" Lorelai said, her blush suddenly spreading to her ears with a bright red ferocity.

"He did!" I cut in, gesturing to her ears.

"Lets not talk about this," she said, a tinge of anger in her voice. "He'd be mortified."

"Sorry, honey," said a deflated Sookie.

"No, I'm sorry. This stupid thing with Christopher has been bugging me," Lorelai suddenly confessed, now staring intently at her mug.

"That he doesn't let you tie him up?" I asked.

"No, it's that … he has a little girl," she said as she looked at me and smiled. "Her name is Gigi and her mother lives in Paris. Chris wants to send Gigi off with her nanny to visit her mother, Sherri, in France."

"Huh," I replied. Lorelai looked at me questioningly which made me think that I had a semi-disgusted look on my face. "Well," I began, my heart starting to race. "I mean, I'm going off of rumors here, and we haven't known each other for very long, so maybe I'm completely out of line for saying this...."

"Lexy, it's okay, spit it out," Lorelai said, suddenly sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms.

"Well, okay," I said slowly. "Coming to Stars Hollow, once people started to warm up to me, they sort of went on and on about you. I mean, you guys really don't need to watch the soaps in this town, because, well, I don't think I was even privy to half of it. I mean – I heard that you ran away from your parents home at seventeen, with your kid, and came here." I leaned my elbows on the table so I could look her in the eye, although she refused to make eye contact. "Maybe I dreamt it up since I only got the Reader's Digest version, but I heard it had something to do with the way your parents were raising your daughter, with a nanny and all? I mean, it strikes me as odd. You're with this guy and his situation sounds a lot like yours was, before you moved here. I mean," I paused, taking in a giant lungful of air. "He could be a really hands on single dad, and then again, he's sending his kid off with the _nanny_ to another continent?" I stopped and fell back into my chair with a giant huff of air. "And I have verbal diarrhea, so I'll shut up now."

Lorelai was suddenly a completely different person sitting before me. That afternoon when I had walked into her inn, she was strong, beautiful, and happy. When she had confronted me about the cut on my thigh, she was selfless and incredibly helpful. This woman sitting at the table now was almost weak and _so_ angry.

She shook her head and looked towards the kitchen. "It's different," she told me, but I could hardly believe her words because I don't think she did.

"As long as it's different," I said in an automatic response with my eyes focused on my mug, barely registering the meaning of my own words. We sat in awkward silence for a minute until Sookie started to giggle once more.

"Sook?" Lorelai asked.

"I'm sorry," she said with a guilty smile, "It's just ... ball gag!"

-ooo-

I felt like an ass, that much is true. After an awkward departure from my tea date with Lorelai and Sookie, and once I had finished resolving the Dragonfly's networking troubles, I set off on foot back towards town. I had been an ass, although I didn't feel like I said anything that wasn't true. I know I can be insufferable at times, and I take enjoyment in some of the pain I inflict upon others, but only when they rightly deserve it. I didn't really think Lorelai deserved what I said, but I knew that once I had started to talk, I wouldn't be able to stop.

I know Lorelai has been through a lot. I myself have experienced similar dilemmas, yet to an entirely different extreme. I know what it's like to sleep with the man your guy hates. What it feels like to wake up the next morning, realizing you made the biggest mistake of your life and knowing you'll never be able to take it back. Losing a part of yourself when you see the look on your guy's face when you tell him what you did. That face haunts you at night, and you lay there wondering what could have been if you had just been stronger and tried harder.

So I went out of my way to be nice to Lorelai, to prove that I wasn't an ass. Which, of course, never makes these situations any better. When I left, Lorelai addressed me with a tight smile before retreating into her office, and I don't blame her. I guess my only hope is that she could recognize and respect the truth in my words. At least, I hope there was some truth in my words.

When I got back to the center of town, ready to beat myself up some more, I tried my best to avoid the general population. I took a little shortcut behind Doose's Market and was about ready to hop the chain link fence when I heard a scuffle. I paused a moment, but assumed it was a stray cat, and I continued to make my way behind Taylor Doose's disturbingly clean dumpster. That's when I heard a small sigh. Fearing the worst, that the sigh belonged to Doose himself, I crouched down and peered past the far side of the dumpster.

"Lawrence," he said. His voice was quiet and sad, registering a tone I'd never heard come out of his mouth before. "Lawrence," he said again, almost accompanied by a hiccup. Someone else was pacing beside him.

"Taylor, I'm sorry," the other man said in a hushed tone. I could only see their lower halfs; Lawrence was wearing cowboy boots and faded jeans over his skinny bowed legs. "You're never there."

"I have a lot of responsibilities in town, Lawr, you know that," Taylor whined.

"Yeah, that's what you always say, baby," Lawrence replied. _Wait, did he just say 'baby'?_

"Please, Lawrence, please don't go, not after ten years," Taylor begged him. Now he really was crying.

"Will you tell them?" Lawrence asked him. There was a pause. "Don't look so confused, Tay! Tell 'em about _us_!" Lawrence spoke forcefully, with hurt and rage in his voice.

"You know I can't do that," I heard Taylor say as he took a small step towards Lawrence. "They'd eat me alive."

"You know I love you, baby. But I can't live like this anymore," Lawrence said before turning around and heading towards a car parked in the alley.

"Lawrence, no!" Taylor cried as he fell to his knees. Lawrence left him there. I heard a car door slam and wheels skid as they pulled out of the alley.

My heart was racing, and I didn't dare move. I waited until Taylor composed himself and went back into the market before I got up and approached the chain link fence. I wrapped my hands around the cool metal, completely lost in thought. As much as the man aggravated me on a daily basis, as pompous and unforgiving as he could be, I really did feel sorry for him. Nobody likes being alone, and no one likes to be dumped. Taylor Doose is gay. I didn't think anyone would be surprised by the revelation. His in-your-face personality making up for his own insecurity, it all suddenly made perfect sense to me.

I pushed away from the fence and circled around to the front of the market to peer at him through the glass. The poor man was despondently ringing people out at the register, refusing to look up at them. His perfectly combed coif was disheveled, and a strand of hair had fallen loose from his meticulous comb over. His eyes were vacant, and I could see the dirt on his knees from the alleyway.

That moment finally made him human in my eyes. I had an overwhelming urge to do something to cheer him up, but couldn't for the life of me think of anything that wasn't degrading.

A tap on my back woke me from my thoughts, and I was immediately reminded that I was supposed to be avoiding town that day. I turned and it was none other than Luke Danes.

"Hey," he said awkwardly. My heart started to race. I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded in his direction.

"I just wanted to say, I'm sorry," he confessed softly. His fists were set on his hips, and he had an empty reusable grocery bag in one of his hands. I think my jaw dropped when I processed his words. He moved his empty hand to rub the back of his neck.

"Jack's pretty messed up, and I don't think it's because of you, but he stormed into the diner the other night all crazy about how you ruined his life. I know he was being overly dramatic."

I crossed my arms and looked away. "That's Jack for ya," I told him, eyes focused on the square.

"Yeah, and it was wrong of me. I think I know more than he does … about _you_?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and dug my fingernails into my palms. "Yeah."

"I just, I'm sorry, okay?" he said quietly as he leaned forward.

I turned my head to look at him. "Yeah, okay."

"Maybe, you think, it might be good to tell him?" he asked, moving his hand back to rub his neck. I stared at him silently. "I mean, he thinks you just toyed with him _before_."

My jaw dropped again, and suddenly I couldn't breath. Luke motioned towards the market. I nodded at him before he stepped away.

Even though the end between Jack and I had been bad, I wasn't playing around with him. We had good times – we had _great_ times together. After all that we'd been through, if he could think that about us, that I had just been toying with him all that time, maybe our relationship hadn't been as special as I had thought. At that moment, standing there like an idiot in front of the market, I realized I did need to talk to Jack. I at least needed to clear the air, to let him know that I wasn't playing with him when we were together.

It had been a weird day already. I stood rooted in front of the market and recounted all the bizarre things that had occurred. I had cried my eyes out while working at the Dragonfly, gabbed with some gals about ball gags, and was overcome with verbal diarrhea. I discovered the end of Taylor's torrid love affair, and was apologized to and given advice by Luke Danes, the king of the monosyllable. I had been struck speechless twice that day, had resolved to talk to my ex, and it still wasn't even lunchtime.

Finally, like an abductee after some sort of alien experimentation gone wrong, I realized that I was gawking at nothing in front of Doose's market and walked briskly back to Sal's computer shop. The day could certainly get weirder, and saying it wouldn't would just be asking for trouble.

I soon found myself perusing the menu at Al's Pancake Word. Al greeted me – I called him Alberto, he called me Alexandra and told me I was as beautiful as ever. Hey, I needed an ego boost, and using Al seemed like the best way to do it. The man warms my heart and was living up to my expectations. He was wearing a green t-shirt with deep blue overalls. I wondered fleetingly if he was a fan of Luigi Mario, or if I was just that lucky. In case you were wondering, Mario and Luigi's last name is Mario. Yes, Mario is Mario Mario. Maybe I could be the Toadette to Al's Luigi. I wonder if he's ever played Mario Kart....

Al woke me from my thoughts and tried to encourage me to try his chicken chow mein sandwich. I acquiesced, imploring him to bring me the biggest glass of Diet Coke known to man.

"Lexy," a male voice said from behind me before moving to the the seat across from me in my booth.

I let out an exasperated sigh and looked at the ceiling. "Oh my God, seriously?!" I questioned the sky. Truth be told, I still had no idea who the voice belonged to, but I didn't really want to know after the way my day had been going.

"Um," he said. "Sorry?"

I lowered my head. Fantastic, it was Dean. "No, it's okay," I told him. "I've just had a weird day."

"Listen, Lexy," he began, nervously strumming his fingers on the table. Al came over with my giant Diet Coke and placed it before me. I took the paper off the bendy straw in my cup and took a large, grateful gulp. There's nothing like carbonated aspartame, caffeine, and sodium to soothe a weird day.

"I'm sorry for being a dick to you," he spurted out after staring at my furious Diet Coke slurping. _Well, it's a day for apologies_, I thought to myself.

"I've been going to therapy with Lindsay, and this is one of the steps. I mean, I do feel bad for treating you the way I did," he let out with a huff, reaching up to shove his scraggly hair out of his face.

"O--kay," I said, nodding.

"Lindsay's waiting outside. Thanks for listening," he said before tapping his fist on the table and standing.

"I hope things work out," I told him sincerely. After he turned his back, I squinted my eyes tightly and wrinkled my forehead. I don't know if 'sincere' looks good on me.

"Your beautiful face might freeze like that," I heard Al say. When I opened my eyes there was a delicious looking greasy concoction sitting in front of me, and I realized just how hungry I was. I gave Al a gracious smile and took a giant bite of the soy saucey sandwichy goodness. I'd be paying for it later, but it seemed like flatulence might be the perfect end to this bizarre day.

-ooo-

I think I may have had the air sucked from my lungs for the third time that day. I made the mistake, again, of wandering through the town square on my way back from Al's. Once more, I stood rooted to the cracked sidewalk by the gazebo, staring at one Rory Gilmore leaning flirtaciously against the front display window of the stationary store. Towering over her, his elbow on the glass of the storefront, stood Jack with a sly smile across his face. He was putting the moves on her. I'd recognize that body language anywhere. And Rory was, well, the little floozy was enjoying it immensely. The floozy, might I add, currently had a rich newspaper mogul boyfriend off in some foreign land or something.

Jack spared me a quick glance, a smile and a nod, then turned back to stare at Rory. That bastard knew I was watching the whole time. My stomach rumbled something fierce, and I was forced to head back to my store, a scowl clearly written across my face.

There in front of me, leaning against my door, stood Kyle with The Claw at the ready. I grabbed his human hand – which, might I add, was incredibly strong – and dragged him around to the back alley. He followed me laughingly until I grabbed his heavy prosthesis and slammed it into the picnic table with a grunt.

"Uh, Lexy," he muttered apprehensively while stuggling to remove The Claw from the nearly rotted wood of Sal's old picnic table.

"That ass!" I shouted, kicking an aluminum trash can. Kyle was still standing there bewildered. I grunted and grabbed his prosthetic arm, dislodging it with one swift yank. I spun to face him, taking his good arm reflexively. He was gaping at me and I was breathing deeply. Before I knew it, he was leaning forward and kissing me. He pushed me back into the picnic table, surprising me with a lip bruising kiss.

Once I gained my senses, I pushed him off of me and dropped my hands to the picnic table. I was fighting for air, trying to think of what I could possibly say. That it was hot? That it was amazing? That it was wrong? That we can't be doing this? Did he have any idea how long it'd been since someone had kissed me like that? Did he have any freakin' clue how hard up I was?! How hard up I'd been for _weeks?_!

While struggling for breath himself, he sputtered, "I'm … sorry! I just … I didn't … I mean! Fuck … you're hot … you know that … right?"

Again, I was totally caught off guard. "You think I'm … hot?"

"Fuck yes!" he shouted, loud enough that it echoed through the alley.

"Well, okay!" I said, surprising myself. He took a step towards me. I put my hand on his chest. "Kyle," I began. "I'm not the kind of girl you date."

He shrugged and enveloped me into another kiss.

-ooo-

A Prince Albert. A PRINCE fucking ALBERT. Who the fuck gets that shit?! I mean, fucking seriously? Seriously, seriously? Claw boy has a fucking Prince Albert? A giant piercing penetrating the tip of his, well, his manhood! In my mind, only junkies and BDSM lovers had Prince Alberts, and even then, only the more tattooed and pierced ones! Not Kyle, not nerd-boy in Star Wars pajamas, not Kyle with the poster of Bruce Springstein hanging on his wall!

I think I said that I was sorry five dozen times. The moment I saw it, I didn't see five glorious inches of pleasure … I saw a shiny metalic item that must have been forcefully and painfully inserted through the tip of his, well, his _thing_. I lost it, and by lost it I mean I doubled over bare-ass naked, off my bed, and onto the floor, overtaken by convulsive giggles and guffaws. Giggling _agai_n. I don't giggle, but for the second fucking time that day, I was _giggling_. And guffawing, lest we forget. On the floor, all modesty gone, between giggles and guffaws, I began my rapid-fire apologies.

I've never seen an erection go from epic to teeny in such a short amount of time. Apparently, when a girl rolls around on the floor naked, laughing at your 'thing,' well, it's not a turn on. He blushed, and the laughing continued.

I'm an ass, in an epic proportion kind of way. As he began to put his Fruit of the Looms back on – yes, Prince Al-boy wears tighty whities – I tried desperately to get a hold of myself. He tossed my panties at me and told me not to hurt myself. Humming amusedly, I dressed next to him. Kyle didn't seem very embarassed, in fact, he was almost back to being chummy.

"You're an insane kisser," I told him seriously as I slid my tank top on.

"How do you think I get all the ladies?" he asked, leaning against a pillow at the head of my bed.

"It worked on me, and I'm _hot_," I said laughingly as I moved to rest my head on his now fully-clothed shoulder.

"Girls also like to hear that," he shot back with a wink before rubbing my head in a brotherly way. "So, I guess we figured out that probably won't work."

"I'm sorry," I said again, moving to put my boots back on. I really was. I still had that damn itch to scratch.

"It's okay. I have a date with Lucinda tonight," he told me with a smile as he stood and adjusted his prostetic arm. "I'm glad we're friends."

I smiled at him, as I had been thinking the same thing. We both stood and moved towards the door of my apartment. "So, I have some CPU cases that need new cooling vents."

"I am _so_ in, " he said enthusiastically as we raced down the stairs to the store.

"Kyle!" I shouted to his back after he ran ahead of me. "You still haven't told me if you have attachments for that thing!"

"Which one?" he asked, turning to smile at me before disappearing into the back room of the shop.

_Damn._


End file.
